Maccabi beat Panathinaikos in the first match of the Euroleague quarterfinals 91:87. This is how the Israeli team makes a break even though it lost most of the match. However, in the last quarter, PAO faltered and Bonzie Colson and Lorenzo Brown created a turnaround.
Kostas Slukas almost had a perfect game. He gave 13 assists to his teammates without a single turnover. Then he missed a free throw in the tight end, which rarely happens to him, and then he sold a key ball with half a minute left on the last possession.
He did not know what to do with her and sent her into the hands of Antonius Cleveland. PAO was down by two at that moment and that lost ball meant that the Greens lost the first match of the quarter-final series.
Just before Slukas lost the ball, Lorenzo Brown made a very important basket through Kendrick Nunn.
Otherwise, the match had a completely different course. PAO controlled the game for 32 minutes, but did so without Kendrick Nunn. The team’s best player had only eight points, but he also had problems with personal mistakes, so he was out of rhythm. In the first half, Slukas, Matias Lessor and Luka Vildosa set the pace, and the same continued in the third period.
However, the problem for PAO was that there was no one to break the match when there were already 11 differences. With that many free throws, the home team missed, especially Matias Lessor, and Maccabi started a comeback.
Bonzie Colson, Josh Niebo, and especially Lorezno Brown were key for him. Colson’s and Brown’s triples, one alley-oop by Nib and Maccabi led by five points at the finish. And PAO erased that with a three-pointer by Grent and a shot by Nana, so it was 87:87, but the next shot by Lorenzo Braun was undefendable.
Brown had 16 points, Baldwin, who was injured, 15, while Colson was the most effective with 18. Lessor had 22 points at Panathinaikos, but also 4/11 from the penalty spot, while Kostas Slukas scored 12 points along with 13 assists.
The course of the match Panathinaikos – Maccabi
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