2021-22Regular SeasonRound 12
Panathinaikos OPAP Athens 70
Zenit St Petersburg 64
November 25, 2021 CET: 20:30
Local time: 21:30 OAKA Altion
Graphic stats
Shooting chart
Panathinaikos end losing skid by snapping Zenit's win streak
Panathinaikos OPAP Athens snapped its five-game losing streak with a 70-64 victory at home, coming back from a big early deficit thanks to an outstanding performance from Georgios Papagiannis. Zenit was riding a five-game winning streak and scored the first 12 points of the game. Panathinaikos put together an 18-2 run in the third quarter and extended the gap to 10 points in the fourth. Zenit pulled back ahead but Nemanja Nedovic hit a crucial three-pointer in the closing stages to give Panathinaikos the win and a 3-9 record. Nedovic finished with 18 points and Papagiannis totaled 18 points, 13 rebounds and 4 blocks while Daryl Macon Jr. chipped in 11 points. Zenit was paced by Jordan Loyd with 15 points, Conner Frankamp scored 14 points and Mindaugas Kuzminskas tallied 13 points and 8 rebounds in the loss.
A HUGE Basket for @paobcgr #7DAYSMagicMoment pic.twitter.com/WvT1cv3VVJ
— Turkish Airlines EuroLeague (@EuroLeague) November 25, 2021
Jordan Mickey hit a three-pointer as he scored Zenit's first 5 points and Loyd added a triple as well in a 0-12 start to the game. Panathinaikos missed its first 6 shots and had 3 turnovers before finally scoring on a Howard Sant-Roos three-pointer after 4:45 minutes. Nedovic provided a spark off the hosts' bench with a four-point play to cut the gap to 11-16. He added 4 more points, but Loyd hit another three-pointer and Zenit was up 15-23 after 10 minutes.
Alex Poythress's free throw started the second quarter for the guests and back-to-back dunks from Mateusz Ponitka and Poythress made it 19-28. Panathinaikos charged back with 3 straight three-pointers to even the game 28-28. Panathinaikos failed to score for the next 4 minutes while Kuzminskas added 6 points to get the lead to 28-38. Okaro White ended the surge with a three-pointer and added 2 free throws and Panathinaikos trailed 33-38 at the break.
Frankamp opened the second-half scoring, but then Zenit went cold and Papagiannis heated up, collecting three alley-oop dunks among 8 points and 3 blocks while Sant-Roos and Nedovic both buried three-pointers in an 18-2 run to put Panathinaikos ahead 51-42. Frankamp made sure that Zenit would have some momentum going into the fourth quarter with a three-pointer and the score was 53-48 after 30 minutes.
Papagiannis tallied 10 points in the third quarter and the first basket of the final frame and after Arturas Gudaitis scored for Zenit, Macon hit two straight baskets and Panathinaikos was up 60-50 with 7 minutes to play. Zenit managed to slow down the hosts and Frankamp hit a jumper and three-pointer and Loyd trimmed the deficit to 60-59. White snapped the rut with just 1 free throw and Kuzminskas followed with a three-pointer and Zenit was back ahead 61-62. Nedovic was not impressed and punched right back with a triple of his own and Panathinaikos reclaimed the lead 64-62 with 103 seconds to play. After a Zenit miss, Papagiannis put in an inbounds pass at the buzzer to make it 66-62 with 44 seconds left. Ioannis Papapetrou iced the game with free throws with 12.9 seconds left.
.@G_P_06 on clean up duty #7DAYSMagicMoment pic.twitter.com/WLx6uyWIaH
Nedovic has top showing of the season
Nemanja Nedovic came off the bench for Panathianikos OPAP Athens and provided the initial spark and ended up with his top showing of the season. After Zenit scored the first 12 points, Nedovic converted a four-point play. He finished with 4-of-7 shooting on three-pointers, including a dagger triple in the closing stages for 18 points. He also dished out a season-high 5 assists and had 6 fouls drawn. While Nedovic poured in 20 points in Round 2, his performance index rating of 21 against Zenit was the best of the season. Nedovic during the game also joined the 1,500-point club and now has totaled 1,510 points in his EuroLeague career.
Greens honor Pascual before the game
Panathinaikos honored Zenit head coach Xavi Pascual before the game and recognized him for his service as head of the bench for the Greens in parts of three seasons from 2016 to 2018. The Spanish coach received a plaque and a flower bouquet from Panathinaikos. Pascual had returned to Panathinaikos as Zenit's coach last season but the Greek club wanted to have the ceremony this season with the fans in the stands in order for them to show him their gratitude as well.
Panathinaikos holds down Zenit shooters, makes more free throw
Panathinaikos did an excellent job holding down the Zenit shooters. The Russian side made just 6 of 27 three-pointers (22.2%) for the game. Zenit also converted just 6 of 10 free throws compared to 15 of 21 for Panathinaikos. The 64 points scored by Zenit were the second-fewest this season for the team, having only scored fewer against FC Barcelona in the 84-58 road loss in Round 5. It was also the fewest allowed by Panathinaikos this season.
Euroleague.net
Referees: RYZHYK, BORYS; DIFALLAH, MEHDI; NIKOLIC, UROS
Panathinaikos OPAP Athens 15 18 20 17
Zenit St Petersburg 23 15 10 16
Panathinaikos OPAP Athens
3 PERRY, KENDRICK 10:31 0/2 0/1 1 1 1 1 1 1 4 -6
5 MACON JR, DARYL 29:27 11 4/6 1/5 1 4 5 3 2 3 8
6 PAPAGIANNIS, GEORGIOS 31:43 18 8/9 2/6 3 10 13 1 2 4 2 4 31
7 BOCHORIDIS, ELEFTHERIOS 6:29 0/1 1 2 -4
10 PAPAPETROU, IOANNIS 25:12 4 0/5 0/3 4/4 1 1 3 2 1 1 1 4 3
14 KASELAKIS, LEONIDAS 6:41 3 1/1 2 2 1 4
15 WHITE, OKARO 28:02 8 0/3 1/2 5/6 1 3 4 3 2 7 9
20 FLOYD, JEHYVE 5:25 0/1 1 1 1 1 1 1
26 NEDOVIC, NEMANJA 29:25 18 1/1 4/7 4/5 5 2 2 6 21
40 EVANS, JEREMY 7:10 2 1/1 1 1 1 1 2 1
72 MANTZOUKAS, ELEFTHERIOS DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
74 SANT-ROOS, HOWARD 19:55 6 0/1 2/3 2 2 2 1 2 9
Team 2 3 5 5
Totals 200:00 70 14/29 9/23 15/21 8 27 35 16 3 12 6 4 20 23 82
Head coach: PRIFTIS, DIMITRIS
2 LOYD, JORDAN 32:17 15 4/7 2/5 1/2 1 1 1 3 3 3 2 9
3 ZAKHAROV, DENIS 0:32
7 KARASEV, SERGEY 5:53 0/1 1 1 1 2 1
9 KULAGIN, DMITRY 8:33 0/2 0/2 2 1 1 2
12 BARON, BILLY 7:37 0/2 0/1 1 -4
19 KUZMINSKAS, MINDAUGAS 20:12 13 4/7 1/3 2/2 3 5 8 1 1 1 3 2 14
20 ZUBKOV, ANDREY 16:37 0/2 0/2 0/2 2 2 4 2 1 1 2
22 POYTHRESS, ALEX 17:47 7 3/4 1/2 1 2 3 2 1 1 2 2 10
25 PONITKA, MATEUSZ 25:54 4 2/3 0/1 2 2 4 2 1 5 12
33 FRANKAMP, CONNER 23:52 14 3/6 2/8 2/2 1 1 2 4 1 1 4 5
55 MICKEY, JORDAN 26:12 9 3/5 1/4 1 2 3 1 1 2 4 1 2
77 GUDAITIS, ARTURAS 14:34 2 1/3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 2 3
Team 4 4 8 1 7
Totals 200:00 64 20/41 6/27 6/10 15 22 37 11 8 10 4 6 23 19 58
48.8% 22.2% 60%
Head coach: PASCUAL, XAVI
PASCUAL, XAVI
"First of all, congratulations to Panathinaikos. For the first 20 minutes, I think we played much better than the score showed. I think we had the chance to lead by 10 points or more but we missed a lot of shots under the basket and easy baskets and we didn't score. In the second half, Panathinaikos was much better than us, especially in the third quarter, when we disappeared. We didn't score from the outside on open shots, we didn't score inside the paint on floaters or pull-ups. We were not effective at all. We scored only 10 points. This was very important for the game. In the last part of the game, we were back. We had our chances to win, but the three-pointer from Nedovic and the alley-oop for Papagiannis decided the game. We didn't have an answer on offense. We had a chance to score on an open shot but we didn't score. This is the reason the game went to Panathinaikos. We came here with five wins in a row and it was our time to lose. In the EuroLeague, if you don't deserve to win, you don't win. And tonight we didn't deserve to win."
SIMTSAK, VASSILIS
Panathinaikos OPAP Athens assistant coach
"It was a big win for us, mostly for psychological reasons. The last three weeks we have improved a lot, mostly our defense. In the game in Munich and today, we deserved the win. A big congratulation to our players and how they adapted to the way how we want to play defense. On offense, we tried to move the ball for three quarters. In the end, we were stuck on their switching defense. We played a lot of iso on outside mismatches. But in the end, we scored a big basket and played good defense and we won the game."
PAPAGIANNIS, GEORGIOS
"I just said the first half wasn't very good for me. I didn't help my team at all. My teammates really got me back in the game. I tried to collect rebounds, first of all. And then we got a really important win for us."
NEDOVIC, NEMANJA
"The last couple of weeks I feel much better. People know what I have been through. That's in the past. I am focusing on my team right now. I think I can help the team even more. We focused on us, we focused on our defense and kept Zenit, which is a very tough team, to just 64 points. And in the end we got the deserved win."
Panathinaikos OPAP Athens celebrates
Mindaugas Kuzminskas - Zenit St Petersburg
Georgios Papagiannis - Panathinaikos OPAP Athens
Conner Frankamp - Zenit St Petersburg
Kendrick Perry - Panathinaikos OPAP Athens
Arturas Gudaitis - Zenit St Petersburg
Daryl Macon - Panathinaikos OPAP Athens
Dmitry Kulagin - Zenit St Petersburg
Nemanja Nedovic - Panathinaikos OPAP Athens
Jordan Mickey - Zenit St Petersburg
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