Baskonia rallies past Panathinaikos, 95-90
Cazoo Backonia Vitoria-Gasteiz returned to winning ways on Friday night with a 95-90 victory against Panathinaikos Athens at Buesa Arena, which improves the hosts' Turkish Airlines EuroLeague record to 13-10 in what is shaping up to be a ferocious battle to reach the playoffs. With this defeat, the visitors dropped to 8-15 and have only a forlorn hope of squeezing into the Top 8.
Usual suspect Markus Howard paced the hosts with 24 points, although he shot only 2-of-11 from three-point range. His support cast delivered, however, as Matt Costello chipped in with 16 points, Vanja Marinkovic scored 14 and Maik Kotsar added 10. Derrick Williams led Panathinaikos with 19 points, while Paris Lee, Georgios Papagiannis and Dwayne Bacon racked up 16 each.
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Panathinaikos looked capable of grabbing a rare road win after racing into a 21-10 lead in the first quarter, with Bacon hitting shots from all angles. However, that was as good as it got for the visitors, as Baskonia replied with a 23-5 run which turned the match on its head. From there, the home side never looked back.
Howard ignited the comeback and his teammates duly followed, having upped the pace to a speed that Panathinaikos struggled to cope with. The lead soared to 52-38 at halftime, with Howard on 14 points while Costello had 8 and Rokas Giedraitis 7, courtesy of a quick transition of the ball producing plenty of team assists.
Panathinaikos looked out for the count when Baskonia romped into a 60-40 lead early in the third quarter, but the visitors replied with a 10-0 run which rekindled their hopes of staging an unlikely comeback.
Baskonia then rediscovered its offensive momentum and, although it wasn’t a comfortable end to the game for the hosts, they did enough to hold on. The Spanish team's advantage ebbed and flowed as it got back into double figures, only for Panathinaikos to reduce it to single digits several times, forcing Baskonia to dig deep in the closing stages. But, in the end, Baskonia did enough to see its victory over the line.