Recap
The debut of Fotis Takianos on the bench, last week in Patras, against Promitheas, didn’t change anything in the image of PAOK. The Thessaloniki team were once again predictable for their opponent, after 25 minutes they ran out of strength and lost by 90:69. They are in and from with 2 wins in the last 8 matches in all competitions, and securing a place in the top six looks particularly difficult since the schedule is really hard with games against Panathinaikos, AS Karditsas, Olympiacos, AEK Athens and Apollon Patras. Without particularly charging, Panathinaikos won 91:75 against AS Karditsas and then, the „devil’s week” is divided into two parts. After the defeat by Monaco (84:70), they took a big victory over Crvena Zvezda (75:66), without the American point guard Dwayne Bacon, which was a great result. The „Greens“ were clearly more of a team and take a a psychological victory. Today Bacon and Grigonis are back, while Agravanis and Williams are out. Panathinaikos took a psychological boost against Crvena Zvezda (Zvezda had 37:53 in the middle of 3rd quarter), and I think that will take another double digit victory against out of form PAOK.