Greece Basket League Begins Play
Earlier this week the board members of ESAKE, the controlling board of the Greece Basket League, decided that it was in the best interest of everyone involved in the league to begin play this weekend. In a short statement the ESAKE board stated, “The board of ESAKE, having as its objective the smooth functioning of the institution of the championship, decided to open the A1 League 2012-13 stating on Saturday 13/10/2012.” The board also stressed that their negotiations with ERT, the Greece state-run television network that boardcasts Greece Basket League games, will continue. “This decision does not affect our aim to continue to strive for the rightful rewards for professional basketball with regard to television rights,” their statement continued. Clubs have tentatively agreed to ERT’s proposal of 1.2 million Euros, reports have stated that the teams were requesting around 2.0 million Euros. While the clubs are agreeing to the ERT proposal, they are also looking for ways to allocate additional advertising space to get closer to their requested amount.
The two main clubs, Olympiakos Piraeus (last years Euroleague Final Four champions and Basket League Champions) and Panathinaikos (Basket League runners-up), have broadcast rights deals worked out on their own (worth an estimated 1.2 million Euros each) and have reportedly agreed to take smaller cuts of the ERT deal so that the smaller clubs get larger shares.
With the statement, the teams began to prepare and yesterday the league officially tipped off with two contests, Kavala – Ilysiakos and Peristeri GS – Panelefsiniakos
Kavala – Ilysiakos 66:68
Ilysiakos jumped out to an early lead, going on a 1-16 run through the first seven minutes of the contest. Kavala finally found the bottom of the basket from the field and dropped in a couple of triples before the quarter closed out to end scoring at 11-19 after one.
The hosts cut the gap to three, 22-25 from behind the arc, but Ilysiakos hammered away inside to extend their lead and then tallied the last seven points of the half to push their margin to 12, 28-41.
Early in the third frame the visitors had run their lead out to 17, 31-48, before Kavala went on a 17-3 run having nearly erased the gap and only being down by three heading into the final 10 minutes, 48-51.
Kavala knocked down a deuce and a three-pointer to open scoring in the fourth and take the lead, 53-51. Ilysiakos countered scoring nine unanswered points to go up 53-60 with four minutes to play. They extended the lead to eight and Kavala charged back to within two, 62-64, with just over two minutes left on the clock. Panagiotis Kafkis got fouled and sank the freebie to complete the three-point play with a minute and a half left, putting the visitors up 62-67. Christoforos Stefanidis drove the lane for two with 45 seconds left, then grabbed the defensive rebound on the other end of the court on a missed shot, getting fouled in the process. He dropped in both free tosses to cut the margin to one with 15 seconds remaining. Giorgios Apostolidis was fouled on the in bounds play and connected on one of two free throws, the second falling into the hands of Bojan Krstevski, who got the ball up to Stefanidis, who missed the three-ball shot at the buzzer to narrowly miss completing the comeback.
Alexis Spanos lead the way for Ilysiakos with 15 points, Dimitris Arapis added 12, Kafkis dropped in 11 points and grabbed eight rebounds in the winning effort.
James Nunnally paced Kavala with 12 points and nine rebounds, Stefanidis and Krstevski contributed 11 points each, Sotirios Manolopoulos dropped in 10.
Peristeri GS – Panelefsiniakos 77:75
The visiting squad from Panelefsiniakos grabbed the early lead in their opening Greece Basket League contest getting up 17-22 after the first frame. The second quarter featured a 15-4 run in the middle of the second 10 minutes to further extend the margin at the half to 31-46.
Peristeri showed their fans that they weren’t ready to fold under a substantial deficit and tallied the first 10 points of the second have to cut the gap to five, 41-46. They reduced the margin further, getting to within two, 48-50, but their visitors got their game back, pounded the ball inside and knocked down a couple of threes to extend back to eight, 53-61, heading into the final 10.
Peristeri fought back during the first half of the fourth and pulled to within one, 63-64, on an Andreas Kanonidis free throw. On the other end of the court Kanonidis grabbed the defensive rebound, ran the court, pulled up and the arc and dropped in a three-pointer to give the hosts the lead with just under six minutes to play in the contest. A Raivio deuce by Panelefsiniakos knotted the score at 70 with just under three minutes to play. Free throws became the key in this game as eight of the last 12 points came from the charity stripe, with Peristeri going five for six and Panelefsiniakos three for four. With 30 seconds left Nikos Liakopoulos hit one of two for the visitors to tie the score at 77 and with 15 seconds remaining Thorn cooly dropped in a pair to give the hosts their first ‘W’ of the 2012-13 Greece Basket League.
Dwight Thorne lead all scorers with 26 for the winners, Kanonidis contributed 14 points and 10 rebounds, Nontas Papantonious added 12 points to the win.
Nikos Papanikolopoulos and Nikos Liakopoulos both tallied 12 points in the loss for Panelefsiniakos.
Today’s remaining Round 1 Games
Kolossos Rhodes – AGO Rethymno
Kao Drama – Panionios
Olympiakos – PAOK
Monday’s Round 1 Games
Aria TT Bank – Panathinaikos
Ikaros – Apollon Patras