Partizan Loses First Top 16 Game to Panathinaikos

After leading at the half and playing and trailing by three at the end of the third quarter, Partizan’s game fell apart. The game ended 81-63 for Panathinaikos. The game was tipped the green way when Slavko Vranes fouled out, somewhere in the middle of the fourth. Up until then, it was a close game, certainly within the reach of Partizan’s sharp shooters. After that, Partizan’s inside defense became porous and Nikola Pekovic (a former Partizan player) dominated the paint. Jan Vesely couldn’t patch up all the holes and nobody else rotated in time to prevent Pekovic from scoring at will. He finished the game with 26 points and 6 rebounds, all offensive.

After losing Vranes, not a particularly skilled offensive player, but an intimidating defender and shot blocker, Partizan’s guards have lost their touch. They hoisted too many threes early in the shot clock and turned the ball over. The coach Vujosevic wasn’t successful in orchestrating better defensive rotations inside and calming the guards down. Partizan rushed themselves into a loss instead playing a more thoughtful offense. Maybe they should have tried Vesely and Lasme inside, even if Vesely didn’t have his night offensively. Lasme seemed to have been in the groove.

It needs to be mentioned that Panathinaikos shot 17 more free throws. If you are a Partizan fan it is easy to jump to conclusions and blame the refs for being lenient towards the Greeks. Maybe they were somewhat influenced by the 10,000 strong crowd, but they didn’t hand the game over to the Greek team. The truth is that Panathinaikos was way more aggressive attacking the hoop. What may hurt Partizan’s fans even more is that Pekovic was the one to cause havoc in the paint and shot 15 of 27 free throws, making 14 of them along the way. Moreover, he celebrated every dunk as if it was his last, even after the game was already secured.

Then, give credit to Panathinaikos. Their roster is deep, their team defense rock-solid and they have plenty of scoring options. They could alternate Diamantidis and Jasikevicius at point and spread out their scoring from outside (Spanoulis was the only other player in double digits).

This loss puts pressure on Partizan to win against Lottomatica next Wednesday. Panathinaikos is going to Malaga to play Unicaja, which could be one of the most interesting match-ups of Game 2 round of Top 16.

Partizan Guards

Have a look at Partizan shooters, because the outcome of the games vastly depends on their outside shooting.

Uros Tripkovic

Milenko Tepic