A moment of silence was observed before the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Round 7 game between Panathinaikos Athens and Cazoo Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz on Friday night, as the Greens honored the memory of Michalis "Mike" Tournakis, a distinguished colleague of Panathinaikos, who passed away at the age of 42.
Personal loss inspired Papagiannis in win over Baskonia
Georgios Papagiannis knew Mike better than most, and he made sure that he led Panathinaikos to a 98-83 home victory on the night that the club paid tribute to him.
Papagiannis had his first double-double of the season, finishing with 11 points and 11 rebounds, while he also had a season-high PIR of 20. In the third quarter, he recorded 7 points and 6 rebounds as Panathinaikos outscored Baskonia 29-16, which set it up to go on and secure the victory in the final period.
Papagiannis made sure to dedicate this win to Mike after the game when taking part in a flash TV interview. "I want to start by saying that this game, this win was devoted to Mike [Tournakis], who we lost last week. For me especially, [given] that I knew him for many years, it was really tough and emotional. He is always going to be in my heart," said Papagiannis. "We made ourselves a promise yesterday and the whole week that we were going to [secure] a win."
The Greens did so by scoring 60 points in the second half, and 98 for the night, the highest offensive outputs of the season behind six double-digit scorers. They also kept the top scoring Baskonia offense to 83 points, the visitors having come into the game scoring 90.8 on average.
It was certainly an inspired effort on both sides of the floor from Panathinaikos.