GRE – Round One to the Reds!

ATHENS (A1 Ethniki) - Former Slovenia captain Rasho Nesterovic scored seven of his game-high 17 points in the fourth quarter and Greece great Theo Papaloukas hit a go-ahead lay-up inside the last two minutes as Olympiacos beat bitter rivals Panathinaikos 65-61 on Wednesday night.

Victory has left the Reds as the only unbeaten team in the A1 Ethniki at 12-0 while Pana are now 11-1.

In the first meeting of the year between the two giants of Greek basketball, the game in the OAKA stadium was knotted at 58-58 when Papaloukas, a gold-medal winner with Greece at EuroBasket 2005, raced into the lane on a fast break and scored for Dusan Ivkovic’s team.

After Dimitris Diamantidis missed from behind the arc for Pana, former Greens star Vassilis Spanoulis fed Nesterovic and he scored to make it a four-point game.

Coming out of a Panathinaikos timeout, Greens sharpshooter Drew Nicholas turned the ball over and Papaloukas punished the hosts with another lay-up for a six-point Olympiacos advantage.

The visitors ended up claiming a four-point win.

"We had nothing to lose," Papaloukas said.

"We played very smart and knew who to target. We didn't make many mistakes and had more assists.

"Most importantly, we showed we have character in a stadium where we sometimes have problems.

"We played smart, maintaining control over the game of Panathinaikos and not allowing them to get any easy points.

"This victory is important to us mainly, for continuity and for psychological reasons."

Diamantidis has been bothered by the flu but played for Panathinaikos.

He was zero of nine from the floor, including misses on all four of his shots from long range.

Diamantidis did have four assists, five rebounds and a steal.

Panathinaikos coach Zeljko Obradovic said he didn't hesitate to play the Panathinaikos talisman.

"He told us that he felt better," Obradovic said.

"And we are talking about our leader, our best player and leader of the team.

"I don't think there are other people that I trust more than Diamantidis.

"The fact that he played without energy, without power, was down to the flu."

FIBA