Real Madrid routs Panathinaikos after fast start, 83-68

Regular Season

Round 22 of 34

game Panathinaikos Athens vs Real Madrid

Regular Season

Real MadridRMB

8368

Panathinaikos AthensPAO

Overview

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Real Madrid has rejoined Olympiacos Piraeus as co-leader in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague standings after grabbing an 83-68 win against Panathinaikos Athens at WiZink Center on Wednesday night. Following this victory, Real improved to a 15-7 record, whereas Panathinaikos dropped to 8-14.

Guerschon Yabusele paced Real with 16 points. He was joined in double figures by Mario Hezonja and Dzanan Musa, who had 14 and 12 points, respectively. Panathinaikos guard Paris Lee scored a game-high 17 points in the defeat. Marius Grigonis added 12 points and Dwayne Bacon finished with 11.

It was an electric start to the game for Real, who were clearly still in great spirits after beating FC Barcelona in El Clásico last week. Yabusele scored 4 points early on as Real opened a 7-0 lead inside the first 2:15. By the halfway point in the first quarter, Los Blancos had gone 15-2 ahead, with Yabusele having 8 points to his name. Panathinaikos began to show signs of life on offense, but on defense it couldn't stop Real, trailing 23-9 with 2:20 to go. By the end of the first quarter, there was a 12-point difference between the teams, 26-14.

After Lee had seen a three-pointer drop in the first 15 seconds of the second quarter, Georgios Papagiannis looked to give Panathinaikos a further boost by draining a triple to make it a single-digit deficit, 29-20, with 8:36 left to play before halftime. But, as was the case in the first 10 minutes of play, Panathinaikos was unable to stop Real from putting points on the board. Los Blancos extended its lead back to 12, 37-25, midway through the quarter, before 5 straight points by Rudy Fernandez made it a 17-point contest, 42-25. It got even worse for the Greens, as Musa went 2-for-2 from the line with 32 seconds remaining to put Real up by 21 points, 48-27. There was still time for one more score, but thankfully for the Greens, it came via a Grigonis triple, with the score 48-30 at halftime.

There was an initial response by Panathinaikos at the start of the third quarter, but halfway through, Real was back to leading by 21 points, 60-39. From there, though, the Greens cut the hosts' advantage down to 13, 60-47, thanks to 5 points in a row by Grigonis and a three-pointer by Bacon. However, Real responded by reopening a 19-point gap, 66-47, with 2:28 to go, as Yabusele scored 4 points and Hezonja added 2. While it appeared that frustration was beginning to set in for Panathinaikos's players, they kept fighting and managed to have a couple of highlight-reel plays from Bacon and Arturas Gudaitis. Entering the fourth, the Greens found themselves down by 11, 68-57.

The main issue for Panathinaikos in the final quarter of play is that it had seemed to use up all of its energy trying to come back in the third, with Real having outscored the visitors 4-2 inside the opening 3:27 of the fourth, 72-59. Soon after, Real was able to put the cherry on top of the cake with an alley-oop play between Sergio Llull and Hezonja, 76-61. Panathinaikos put some more points on the board late on, but Real stayed calm as it went on to record its 15th win of the season, having led for the entire 40 minutes.