Justifying the unjustifiable… | Blog – Nikos Papadogiannis

Nikos Papadogiannis believes that the time has come to be strict with the new Panathinaikos and leave leniency aside.

And since Panathinaikos starts this year with ambitions, dreams and a swollen piggy bank, we have to be tough with them and feel the star quality early: If he can’t overcome OAKA’s war-torn, unarmored, orphaned Maccabi II star, he has no right to look so high in the EuroLeague this year.. At least until proven otherwise.

Of course, the counterattack that put him on the verge of victory had some credit, but his display in the first 25 minutes left minds aching, eyes sore, and flags flying at half mast. Despite the passage of two years filled with rock bottom nights, I never remember Panathinaikos for example. Radonjic is as bad as Ataman’s Panathinaikos in the first half of tonight’s match. This does not mean that he spent a fortune in stone for two years which caused him to fall to sixteenth place…

The amazing thing is that Panathinaikos It was revived and became a basketball team again when Ergin Ataman lostWho seems to be disappointed and watches with a look of resignation on his face. After the expulsion of the Turk, who responded with unjustified anger and lost his right, the “Greens” played good old-fashioned defense, stealing balls around the perimeter of the field even with long balls (Mitoglou, Antetokounmpo), make changes and errors correctly, identify the opponent’s weaknesses, use the hot hand (vildosa)They did not care about heavy names.

If Christos Cirellis makes a mistakeThis was Lesueur’s return to the starting lineup in the last two minutes of normal time: the Frenchman sold a crucial possession (as he did in the derby with Olympiacos), lost the ball from the goal line, and fell asleep when it could have led to a blocked ball after the victory over Panathinaikos, It looked more like second or third place than first place. This mistake was paid for in hard currency.

Of course, all of this can be read backwards: e.gIf your best tall man is Kostas Antetokounmpo even though you finished first in the Europa League last year and if the best player of the night is the one who counted 573 days without an official match even though you paid a huge amount of money to bring in a star from the team . The NBA takes the same position, which is completely wrong.

At least he appeared for a quarter of an hour – for the first time – The real Luca Vildosa. The Argentine’s four three-pointers in the fourth period and his good defense gave Panathinaikos a boost and reminded that the owner of the shirt bearing the number “2” even reached the NBA, not so long ago. Vildosa has the qualities of a hero, he has class, he has character. But why is it so late?

However, overtime began to lose momentum due to self-handicap, and the Israelis became frustrated as they lost sight of the sky. Panathinaikos could still benefit from their talents, with Kostas Sloukas getting some rest off the bench He returned with a clear mind to brilliantly win all three shots from a close draw.

Once upon a time, at the 2019 FIBA ​​World Championship in China, He was in the same position as the national team shirt and scored 2/3 again Of the line, with the ball weighing its weight in gold. It’s not easy to put down 3 out of 3 with beats on a thousand, whoever you are, no matter how good your hand is. Especially when you feel the need to wear an abaya and justify the mess that happened to you during the summer…

A Panathinaikos 1-3 result doesn’t look disastrous to the naked eye, but it comes from an acceptable schedule, with at least two acceptable opponents, and a three-way date with their best ally (who is warm even on his cold nights – like OAKA tonight)two losses at home in overtimeBasketball sucks in general, and the pain increases when injured and struggling returns are added to the cocktail.

Of course, Papapetrou is absent, and I’m afraid he’s the last player Panathinaikos could lose, but anyway he’ll be late. Juancho was forgotten somewhere between Denver and Barcelona, ​​Gay gave 6-7 minutes of basketball overall, Grant is nothing more than a roll player, Palczerowski is moving at full speed to third position, the Greek second line players are ignored, The edifice appears to be built on trembling sand.

But again, a shot from Sloukas at zero and a missed rebound from Mitoglou from a shot They can retroactively turn a 1-3 into a 3-1 and overshadow them in the sunlight. Did he really want us to say “Panathinaikos is like Olympiacos” tonight? Rather, it is the naked eye test that leaves the new Panathinaikos in the post-test phase, despite the dismal results and lost ground. Vasconia’s humble visit to OAKA next Friday could help bring about a fresh start.