This is not a gift

Panathinaikos Athens vs. CSKA: 85-80 (-5)

Panathinaikos: Singleton (13 + 5 rb + 4 to), Nichols (5 + 3 st), Rivers (17 + 5 rb), James (13 + 3 rb + 3 to), Pappas (8), Feldeine (2), Gist (6 + 7 rb + 4 pf), Gabriel (3), Bourousis (6 + 7 rb), Calathes (12 + 3 rb + 6 as)…

CSKA: De Colo (15 + 4 rb + 5 as + 5 to), Teodosic (15 + 4 to), Augustine (14 + 7 rb + 3 bs), Fridzon (4), Jackson (3), Vorontsevich (14 + 6 rb), Higgins (8 + 3 rb), Khryapa (2 + 9 rb), Hines (5 + 3 to + 5 pf)…

That was a game where both teams, the outcome may be different whether on Panathinaikos’s side or our side, will be well deserved whatever the outcome would be. So congratulations to Panathinaikos for winning. I will try to justify that by saying we had two different halves. The first half belonged to Panathinaikos offensively; they managed to score a lot of buckets in half-court possessions. We established some good fighting on the boards and we managed to win the rebounds, which is a big part of Panathinaikos’s power, but in the second half we came out strong, we were the better team and we took the momentum. With something like three minutes to go, Panathinaikos made some big plays and we went to overtime, where they made better plays than us and they won the game. So congratulations.