Panathinaikos takes Euroleague title
BERLIN — Panathinaikos withstood a late comeback by CSKA Moscow to win its fifth Euroleague title Sunday with a 73-71 victory against the defending champions.
Dimitris Diamantidis and Sarunas Jasikevicius made three free throws in the final 10.4 seconds for Panathinaikos from Greece.
Ramunas Siskauskas missed a jump shot at the buzzer that would have tied it for CSKA.
Panathinaikos led by 23 points with six minutes left in the third quarter before Moscow closed to within one point twice in the final 26 seconds.
Vassilis Spanoulis was chosen MVP of the Final Four after scoring 13 points for Panathinaikos.
Antonis Fotsis also added 13 points and Diamantidis and Jasikevicius scored 10 apiece for Panathinaikos.
Panathinaikos coach Zeljko Obradovic extended his record as the most successful Euroleague coach with his seventh title.
Drew Nicholas, who won the NCAA title with Maryland in 2002, became the fourth player to win both the NCAA and Euroleague title following Tyus Edney and Jiri Zidek (both UCLA 1995, Zalgiris 1999) and Tony Delk (Kentucky 1996, Panathinaikos 2007).
J.R. Holden led CSKA with 14 points while Siskauskas and Trajan Langdon both had 13 points.
Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press, article courtesy of www.ESPN.com
Recent comments