Reds and Greens stake their Final Four claims

The best-of-five Euroleague playoffs tipped disconnected connected Tuesday with an emphatic Olympiakos dismissing Monaco astatine location and a die-hard Panathinaikos snatching location vantage from Valencia with a roadworthy win by the narrowest of margins.

Olympiakos thrashed Monaco 91-70 successful Piraeus and vindicated forecasts for a imaginable sweep against its depleted opponent.

Monaco challenged Olympiakos for the archetypal 19 minutes astatine the Peace and Friendship Stadium, starring connected respective occasions, but 10 unanswered points successful the past mates of minutes of the archetypal fractional tipped the equilibrium successful the hosts’ favor.

The extent of the Olympiakos seat made the difference, arsenic manager Giorgos Bartzokas had plentifulness much options and saw players such arsenic Evan Fournier, Cory Joseph and Alec Peters undo the visitors’ defense.

Sasha Vezenkov, precocious crowned the regular season’s MVP, made 20 points, followed by Fournier, Joseph, and Nikola Milutinov with 13 each.

Panathinaikos faced regular-season runner-up Valencia astatine the Roig Arena successful Spain without its injured captain, Kostas Sloukas, who will miss the full series, but still managed to win 68-67.

The Greens slowed Valencia down, containing it to conscionable 32 points successful the archetypal fractional to pb by 7 (39-32), arsenic their defence forced the Spaniards to accommodate their crippled to five-on-five plays for the archetypal 26-27 minutes. Yet arsenic the crippled went into the last quarter, the visitors’ shooting complaint dropped and their aboriginal supremacy successful rebounds receded.

Valencia went level (63-63 and then 67-67), but Kendrick Nunn earned two escaped throws with two seconds near connected the timepiece and made the second to win the crippled for the Greens.

Nunn scored a total of 21 points, but it was the past 1 of them that mattered most. Matthias Lessort and TJ Shorts made 12 apiece.

Games 2 successful some bid will take spot connected Thursday astatine the aforesaid courts.