First defeat for the tired Panathinaikos who keeps the appearances of Brown and Yurtseven

His first defeat in this year’s summer training ahead of the new competitive season was suffered on Monday night (16/09) by Panathinaikos AKTORlosing by a score 88-75 by Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Closed “Tassos Papadopoulos-Eleftheria”, in the game that brought down the curtain on the 4th “Neofytos Handriotis” tournament of Cyprus.

After yesterday’s imposing appearance on her Bayern Munich and the victory with a score of 86-69the “clover” was not able to play at high performance standards today, as, a little fatiguea bit of the good performance of the Israelis, led Ergin Ataman’s team to its first defeat after three friendly victories, having preceded those against Cedevita Olympia (81-76) and Anatolou Efes (83-72) for the “Cedevita Tournament » which took place in Slovenia.

The “greens” found themselves chasing the score early on, and despite the efforts of Brown and Yurtseven in the foreground, they could not find “antidote” to the extraordinary proportion of Israelis behind 6.75 m. (12/25tr.), with the result being judged fair based on the image of the two teams.

What Ataman and his colleagues keep from the match is his second good performance Yurtsevenwho finished the match with 12 points (6/11 shooting) and 5 rebounds, as did Lorenzo Brown (14p., 4as.), but also the mood and energy brought out by Chedi Osman on the parquet (8p., 4r., 1kl.).

The first scorer for the winners was Sorkin with 18 points and 8/10 shots, while a key player in the finale was Yokohamaites (13p., 4as., 3r.).

The match:

THE Panathinaikos AKTOR started the match with Sluka, Grant, Osman, Hernangomet and Yurceven in his starting five, getting on the floor better against Maccabi Tel Aviv. With him Yurtseven active enough to constantly ask for the ball and try several shots, but also quite misguided, the “greens” led 8-5 in the 3′ and shortly after with 10-7 in the 4th minute with Osman’s basket.

From that point on, the Maccabi Tel Aviv raised “turns” and in combination with the poor defensive function of the “clover”, she managed to run a quick 10-2 run in her favor 17-12 at 6′. Ergin Ataman’s team had difficulty finding the way to the opponent’s basket, at the same time where they had no “antidote” to the fast movement of the ball by the Israelis, from which both of Yokoubaitis’ three-pointers came for 26-18 at 9′. In fact, Hord and Simmons increased the difference to +11 (19-30), before Mitoglou in dead time created 22-30 of the first period. And to think that yesterday, against Bayern, the “Seven Stars” had conceded only 8 points in the same period.

The scene was similar at the beginning second quarterwith the Israelis finding solutions and comfortably maintaining the difference in double digits (24-35 at 13′). Somewhere there, however, came the competitive “explosion” of Panathinaikos, which put me ahead of him Lorenzo Brown with 5 points (he had 10 at halftime), ran a quick and aunmatchable 11-0 run for the tie (35-35) at 16′!

Hoan and Randolph managed to offensively break the Israelis for 37-42 at 17′, with Chedi Osman (8 points in the half) to take over the offensive part of the “clover” and with individual actions to take the fouls, of which he found five points in the last two minutes, with Panathinaikos going to the locker room back in the score with 44-47.

A little tired from the consecutive games, a little tired from the battles of the first half, but also from the data and the conditions of the season, the two teams entered the third quarter, making too many mistakes and missing too many shots. It is indicative that the individual scores of the period were 11-11, while from 26′ to 29′ – for three minutes that is – there was no basket in the match! Panathinaikos, on the other hand, had 4/13 shots, while the “people’s team” recorded 5/16 from the field, as a result of which the period finished with a score of 55-58.

And while the match was on… a razor’s edge and open to any outcome, an outburst by Maccabi Tel Aviv at the beginning of fourth and last period with Menko’s three-pointer, Gabriel’s alley oop dunk, and Simmons’ shots from the expulsion of Ergin Ataman, they allowed the guests to escape with 65-57 at 31′! Despite Yurtseven’s nice hook, the Israelis “hit” two more times behind 6.75m. with Menko and Yokubaitis, thus equaling the maximum value of the difference in the match for 70-59 at 33′.

Panathinaikos’ response was not long in coming, with Yurtseven, Grant and Papapetrou running a quick 6-0, reducing at 5 (65-70) at 34′. However, two straight Maccabi 3-pointers from Sokrin-Jokubajtic pushed the lead back at +11 and 76-65 at 36′with the “greens” relaxing enough in the last minutes, thus knowing the fatal defeat with score 88-75.

The quarters: 22-30, 44-47, 55-58, 75-88.

See here the statistics of the match.