By Oz Porat
Excellent round of Euroleague, some powerhouses found themselves with the face down after the buzzer while it was a day of celebration for others.
After two losses last year, Panathinaikos finally managed to beat Unicaja, and with an ease. Unicaja is still not in best form and is still looking for ways to improve the team while Panathinaikos looks great at this part of the season. Diamantidis had a great game with 20 points, 7 steals and 5 assists for the winners.
Maccabi Tel Aviv still looking for a road win this season, and just like the game against Partizan it looked very bad in the second quarter, as Cibona was already leading by double digits and only at the last minute gave Maccabi a chance to comeback to the game.
Napoli and Pau-Orthez finished their 40 minutes with a 77-77 tie, but only Orthez was there in the overtime and with 22 points by Clint Harrison won the game 84-96.
Barcelona is still perfect after facing Solomon-less Ulker, who was behind for 40 minutes and could not stop Juan Carlos Navarro who added 19 points for his personal history books.
Aris managed to score only 42 points against Benetton in Treviso, and lost against 64 points by the home team. Soragna was the leading man for Benetton who knew it must win this game in order to get back on top of the Top16 race.
CSKA had an excellent performance in a tough court as it beat Zalgiris in Lithuania 59-78, Zalgiris is already with 4 losses and it doesn't look good for this team, clearly a change must be made if it want to reach high this year as well.
RehinEnergie Koln is still on the horse and got its second win in a row, at home against Prokom Trefl after getting the lead in the third quarter and letting Prokom only to come close at the end. Fayion scored 22 for Koln.
All five home teams won on Wednesday, Olympiacos is not perfect anymore, Drew Nicholas was part of a Euroleague record when Efes Pilsen scored 39 points in the last quarter of the game, managed to get the lead after being 16 points behind and to win 95-77 against Olympiacos.
TAU keeps winning at home, this time against Climamio Bologna 90-80, and as a result now shares the top position in Group A with Olympiacos.
Dynamo won a do-or-die battle against Le Mans with style 74-57 as Antonis Fotsis scoring 17 points for the winners.
Despite being up by 14 points, DKV Joventut lost for the second time in a row, this time 71-69 against Lottomatica Roma as Alex Righetti scoring 16 points for Roma including the winning triple in the last minute of the game.
and finally, 3 seconds to the end, Dusan Kecman made an amazing jumpshot to win the game for Partizan 70-71 against Union Olimpija, and shocked the home crowed as Partizan start to win on the road as well and sticks to the top of Group B.
RheinEnergie - Prokom 84-80 (Faison 22)
Cibona - Maccabi Elite 87-82 (Wright 22)
Panathinaikos - Unicaja 87-72 (Hatzivrettas 21)
Eldo Napoli - Pau-Orthez 84-96 (Harrison 22)
Benetton - Aris TT Bank 64-42 (Soragna 19)
Zalgiris Kaunas - CSKA 59-78 (Langdon and Smodis 15 each)
Winterthur - Fenerbahce 84-70 (Navarro 19)
Efes Pilsen - Olympiacos 95-77 (Nicholas 20)
Dynamo Moscow - Le Mans 74-57 (Fotsis 17)
Tau Ceramica - Climamio 90-80 (Scola 26)
Lottomatica - Joventut 71-69 (Righetti 16)
Union Olimpija - Partizan 70-71 (Cummings 18)
24.11.2006
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',800,600); "Andrew Nicholas, Efes Pilsen (Photo: Euroleague Pictures)")
