Sunday, October 14, 2007
Euroleague champion Panathinaikos, playing in the second and last game of its U.S. trip, was defeated by the NBA champion San Antonio Spurs 113-91 on Sunday morning. Panathinaikos could not put the breaks on the Spurs at all and could not keep up the scoring pace in the middle quarters of the 48-minute game played entirely under NBA rules. San Antonio managed to lead by as many as 29 points before pulling its starters in the final quarter, which Panathinaikos was able to make its only winning quarter of the trip.
Tim Duncan scored 20 points in 21 minutes to lead the winners, who played without starting point guard Tony Parker. Manu Ginobili, the former Euroleague Finals MVP, added 15 points for the Spurs, Brent Barry 12 and Darius Wshington 10.
For Panathinaikos, Sarunas Jasikevicius made 4 of 4 three-pointers on his way to 18 points, the same total for Mike Batiste. Sani Becirovic contributed 13 points and Milos Vujanic 12, while Dimos Dikoudis picked up 8 rebounds.
A first-time Panathinaikos starter, forward Efstratios Perperoglou, dished a pair of assists, to Jasikevicius and Batiste, before San Antonio pulled ahead for the first time. The Spurs would not trail the rest of the game as Ginobili got hot with his second three-pointer, good for a 16-9 San Antonio lead. Jasikevicius responded with his second, too, plus a jumper that got the Greens within 18-21. A pair of free throws by Dejan Tomasevic made it 20-24, but Barry's first triple helped San Antonio extend the lead to 32-25 after one quarter. The closest Panathinaikos got after that was at the start of the second, thanks to Becirovic's jumper and a triple by Nikos Hatzivrettas that made it 32-30. Duncan, who had committed 3 fouls and made only 1 of 4 free throws until then, came back with Ginobili and helped take over the game. Panathinaikos went 3 minutes without scoring as Duncan, Ginobili and Bowen boosted the lead to 42-32. The Spurs' scoring rhythm stayed the same, with Barry adding a triple, as the advantage grew to 53-36. A late Jasikevicius triple and jumper by Hatzivrettas limited the damage to 60-44 at halftime.
The Spurs went back to Duncan and Ginobili to start the third quarter with a 9-2 run that effectively sentence the game at 69-46, ending a 15-minute run of 37-16 for the NBA champs. Although the Greens scored in small spurts, the Spurs didn't stop filling the basket as a high lead of 29 points, 84-55, came with 3:29 left in the third quarter. It wasn't until the foutth quarter when Vujanic hit back-to-back triples that Panathinaikos could make the score look better, but even then, the Greens were already thinking ahead to the long trip home and the start of both the Euroleague and Greek League seasons coming soon.