Ioannis Papapetrou: The “X-Factor” of Panathinaikos in the play offs (vid)

Panathinaikos put on a great performance at OAKA in Game 2 of the series against Maccabi, winning 95-79 to level the series at 1-1, which moves to Belgrade next week with two games that will decide a lot for qualification to the Berlin Final Four.

Ergin Ataman said it after the first match and the defeat by the people’s team, that his team will react and prevail and despite not having Juancho Hernangometh who had sinusitis, the greens with a burst “cleaned” Oded’s team Katas and they made an appointment in Serbia.

The big star for Panathinaikos was Kostas Sloukas, who set a career record with 29 points and had the… baguette, but the key player and the one who changed the entire flow of the match was another Greek.

The reason for Ioannis Papapetrou, who was the “X factor” for the clover, in a match that he played 28 minutes, which was the most he has on the court this year. The vice-captain of the greens made the difference for Ataman’s team, he did everything on the floor and had his best performance this year in the most crucial game of the year (until the next one).

In particular, Papapetrou filled the void of Juancho and did it more than deservedly. He actually did better than the Spaniard as well, as he finished the match with 15 points on 4/7 three-pointers, 3/4 shots, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, 1 steal and 13 in the rating system.

A very difficult season

In general, “Pap” did a lot of work on the floor, played excellent defenses and offered in many places that cannot be seen in the statistics, as a result of which Ataman also deified him after the end of the match.

What is worth noting is that Papapetrou suffered a lot this season, he went through the surgery door at the beginning of the season and was out for several months, he missed many matches, and even when he came back it took time.

The match against Maccabi is also pivotal for him, who proved that he is a Euroleague player and can stand at the highest level at the age of 30 and after several injury issues. In terms of stats and how the season and regular season went, it’s enough to see that he missed 25 games and played just 9 this year, averaging 13 minutes and just 3 points.

In total, in 117 minutes in the Euroleague this year, he scored 27 points and in the match against Maccabi in about 28 minutes (27:52) he scored 15 and was very important, while he was also present in view of the continuation, showing both Ataman and his teammates that will have an active role in Panathinaikos’ rotation in the remaining matches.