Panathinaikos basketball players became European champions for the seventh time, after defeating Real Madrid with a score of 95:80 in the final of the final four. Euroleague held in Berlin.
Panathinaikos thus broke a fast of 13 years - during which they did not even manage to reach the final final four. After the 2011 title against Maccabi, he is again the champion of Europe after defeating the first seed Real Madrid.
Only Real and CSKA have more trophies than the Greens in the Euroleague - Real remains on 11 titles, while the Armenians were champions eight times. Among individuals, Partizan coach Željko Obradović was champion on nine occasions.
Real better at the start, turnaround in the third quarter
Ćus Mateo's team opened the match miraculously, hitting all possible shots, almost without exception. Real scored as many as 36 points in the first quarter - PAO has not received so many points in any quarter this season - and at the beginning of the second quarter, Madrid had even +14.
What followed was a real renaissance of the team led by Ergin Ataman - they weighed down the Greens' defense, closed the approaches to the racket and eliminated passes to Real's centers. This forced the Spanish team to "shoot" mostly from outside positions, but the shot did not serve the first seed.
An exceptional defensive release brought additional confidence to the entire team of Panathinaikos, and "cut off" Real and there was no way back.
PAO took the lead for the first time in the match only in the middle of the third quarter, during which Real scored only 7 points - the fewest in any quarter this season. Since then, with less oscillations, Panathinaikos built an increasing lead, which culminated towards the end when it was +18 for the Greek club.
Kostas Slukas without a miss from the game
The best player of the match is the defender of Panathinaikos Kostas Slukas, who climbed to the top of Europe with the third different team. He scored 24 points - without a field goal miss (6-6!), 6-7 shots - and added 2 rebounds and 3 assists. For his extraordinary performance, he was also awarded the award for the best player of the final four.
Kendrick Nunn also made a huge contribution - 21 points and 3 rebounds and assists. Especially important in the second half was the former center of Red Star and Partizan Matias Lessor, who, despite everything, offered tremendous resistance to Real's centers Walter Tavares and Vincent Poirier and finished the match with 17 points, 6 rebounds and an assist.
In Real, the representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Džanan Musa, stood out with 15 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists, and former Zvezda point guard Facundo Campazzo with 12 points and 4 assists. However, none of the players from Madrid had a continuous solution to the PAO attack and that was the deciding factor in the final.
