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Panathinaikos overcomes Olympiacos, 78-66, with massive free-throw advantage; Bourosis resigns from national play in protest

May 30, 2011

Just a couple of weeks ago, as Olympiacos polished off Aris in the EƩAKE semifinals with a couple of convincing wins to bring the Reds’ record against Greek sides to 36-0 in 2010-11, some observers were calling out for the brooms. After Sunday night’s play, cries of “sweep!” surely rang out across Hellas – but it’s the seven-time defending champion Greens who are positioning themselves to win in straight games.

Looking at the larger picture, however, a third win (and subsequent 3-0 series win for the 8th consecutive title) by PAO on Wednesday could be quite the Pyrrhic victory for PAO and the league.

While Mike Batiste (19 points, four rebounds), Dimitris Diamantidis (15 points) and Antonis Fotsis (eight rebounds) all had fine games for Panathinaikos, many observers – including key Olympiacos/Team Greece members – all chalk up the loss to those extra men on the court, i.e. the referees. Amid the boxscore statistics, most damning is that 31-9 line, as in Panathinaikos got 22 more trips to the free-throw line than Olympiacos.

Diamantidis, Batiste and Kostas Tsartsaris combined for 17-of-21 shooting from the line and no basketball expertise was needed to see that the aggressive inside game played by the Reds in the first half (leading them to a 43-37 lead) was barely in evidence over the second 20 minutes as whistle after whistle blew.

As a result, the requisite highlight clips were overtaken on YouTube and sports news by Ioanissis Bourousis, who stated in the post-game that he had resigned from further play with the Greek national team, thanks to widespread corruption in the league. Bourousis’ frustrations mirrored those of BallinEurope reader Christopher, who, in the wee hours this morning commented that, “Greek basketball league is an incredible disgrace. Game 2 was reffed 90-10 in favor of Panathinaikos. That is the most disgraceful and shameful league in the world.

“Even the rigged NBA has nothing on in in terms of corruption.

“It’s all backfiring on them now. Bourousis quit the national team saying he would no longer play for Greece since the league is rigged every year.

“And from what I hear other Greek Olympiacos players (Mavrokefalidis, Spanoulis, Papaloukas, Papanikolaou, Printezis, Pelekanos, Katsivelis, Sloukas, Vasilopoulos, Glyniadakis) are also going to refuse to play for the Greek national team if the refs don’t stop rigging the games in the rest of the series.

“Guess it was good for Panathinaikos while it lasted with all those years of rigging the league. They have now destroyed the Greek national team. Congrats.”

Jokes and schadenfreude aside, this is indeed a fitting end to one hell of a season (literally) in Greek basketball. What can be done…?

May 30, 2011ballineurope
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This post was published on May 30, 2011
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Comments: 14
  1. Manager
    12 years ago

    Sour grapes.

    ReplyCancel
  2. Nton
    12 years ago

    dont such a foolish guyz Bourou made his decision.. ok! But he must kmow that playing for the Greek NT and any NT is pride and not a selfish game between rivals..i hope he is gonna make up his mind cuz i’m sure he did that statetment right after the game when he was definitely disappointed. as for the rest that i’m reading here there is no way for the rest players of Oly to deny play in NT. dont make the rivals in LIthuania feel happy and relief you guyz, this is just not gonna happen because of one player! we have players as good as Bourou and maybe better! 14 palyers for each team this year. King Vasileiadis at last in Greek NT!! Paixtoura mouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!o bourousis an 8elei na klapsei as paei sto spiti tou kai as afhjsei tis dhlwseis typou apeiles, an den 8elei na paiksei sta pa@@ria mas! megalh h xarh tou!

    ReplyCancel
  3. Gabe
    12 years ago

    Why would the Greek league rig the finals. I mean in the NBA they suspect rigging to get certain teams in the finals (i.e. the Lakers) to get higher ratings but I don’t understand what the league will get out of rigging the finals, unless it is a gambling thing than that is really unsavory.

    ReplyCancel
    • Andrea
      12 years ago

      @Gabe, also in European Leagues there’s this talk about bigger teams being better for tv ratings, interest and the likes. Heck, I remember Italy’s Montepaschi Siena fans being extremely mad at the refs over their loss in the Euroleague semis against Panathinaikos and some hinted at the fact it was because Pana is a much bigger market than Siena, and is a more recognizable brand, so Euroleague told refs to make Siena lose…teams execs sent vids to the Euroleague office showing them all of the calls that went against the team.

      Still, like I said in my latest post, all of this rigging talk is just sour grapes (unless you talk about Russia, since last year there was a pretty big ref scandal over there) whether it is Greece, Italy, Spain, NBA etc….why do you think it just comes from people whose team lost? Have you ever seen people complaining about refs when their team wins? Ever seen people complaining about refs favoring their team over the opponents? I have never seen that. It’s just sour grapes. It’s just people who can’t accept the fact their team lost so they need to find excuses so they blast the refs or, even worse, they start talking about game fixing.

      I don’t really subscribe to those theories. If other people do, so be it. That’s their choice.

      I just think it’s a total waste of time, truthfully.

      Refs make mistakes, too, since they’re humans. Doesn’t mean that the fix is in as soon as there’s a bad call, whether it’s real or perceived.

      ReplyCancel
  4. Manager
    12 years ago

    There is no rigging…

    Just usually whining by losers, it’s fashionable in Europe.

    ReplyCancel
  5. Pero
    12 years ago

    I watched both games. They were the most rigged games I have ever seen in any sport anywhere in my entire life. It was so blatantly rigged that it was almost surreal. I guarantee that the Olympiacos fans will burn SEF to the ground if the refs continue their actions in game 3.

    If I was Olympiacos I would simply cancel my involvement in that league and never play in it again. I would leave it and join some other league like the ABA or VTB.

    It actually makes no sense to even stay in a league that would stoop to such obvious game fixing as what is happening there.

    ReplyCancel
  6. Andrea
    12 years ago

    Spare me the rigging talk…it’s so ridiculous it’s crazy. We live in 2011 and technology, these days, is unbelievable. If you look around, every single thing gets leaked out one way or another so you can’t hide anything anymore. In order to rig games you’d need several people involved (refs, league’s executives, maybe even some team’s execs) so there’d be waaaay too many ppl involved and rest assured phone calls, e-mail exchanges between them would get interecpted one way or another, just like it happened in Italian soccer back in ’06 when they found out, thanks to phone conversations they intercepted, that they were fixing games. So, can’t it be just awful officiating? Can’t it be the refs had a bad day, just like players do from time-to-time when they can’t really hit anything. It happens to the refs, too, people.

    Also, getting caught rigging games would almost assurely mean the death of any league doing that, so why should leagues rig games if getting caught would mean their end? Is it really worth it? Just so that they could make a couple more bucks and get a couple more points when it comes to TV viewership? Please.

    So I don’t really believe all of this rigging talk, in ANY league.

    ReplyCancel
    • Gabe
      12 years ago

      Well said Andrea and that’s true for FIBA competitions as well. There is so much money being made why risk it. One whistle blower could blow the whole thing. It’s just sour grapes.

      ReplyCancel
  7. Erik
    12 years ago

    The Greece A1 finals was rigged last year and this year. Anyone that disputes this did not see any of the games. I personally will not ever watch another A1 game after what I have seen in game 2. I do not follow sports competitions that are fixed.

    ReplyCancel
  8. Manager
    12 years ago

    I’ve seen all finals games of the past 15 years. Maybe a little pushing to the home advantage team (Panathinaikos, Olympiacos, AEK, even Aris) but there is no rigging.

    Just a spoiled team with spoiled fans and cry-baby president with his dad’s billions.

    ReplyCancel
  9. Zisi
    12 years ago

    Manager is also known as KWSN-Men on interbasket.net He is an EMPLOYEE of Panathinaikos and is a shill.

    ReplyCancel
  10. Phileus
    12 years ago

    If this were the NBA, Bourousis would have just given up and joined the Miami Heat. Ba-dump-tiss! Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all night.

    ReplyCancel
  11. Haris
    12 years ago

    So, for ONE MORE TIME. BallinEurope is BIASED.

    It gets some bad comments from the forum users (LOL), a comment of a pissed off player (we all know he talks alot…) and a few statistics as evidence…

    Without making THE MOST important;
    COMMENT ON THE GAME ITSELF and PROVE that the refs played 90-10,
    as it so much talks about…

    And yes, PAO is the best team the last 20 years in EUROPE.
    So, it is not surprise that it is 7 times champion in Greece…
    While on the other hand… Oly lost 3 games in a row to SIENA.
    Why? Because SIENA played them hard.
    So, OLY would be prefect for ACB haha.

    If BallinEurope had seen the game,
    the would see that with such an attitude OLY will not go anywhere.

    Cheers suckers.

    ReplyCancel
  12. Costas
    11 years ago

    Gavros apo mikro paidi aftos pou grafei edw… Gi’afto milaei gia diaitisia.

    Spazete pou den pairnei o Olympiakos prwtathlima kai grafei sto internet sta aglika mipws psarwsei o kosmos.

    Oso gia sena Andrea kai tin texnologia sou…. gelaw mono…. diladi sti bala pws ta stinoune se olo ton kosmo kai den tous pairnoun xabari? Sto NBA o allos pou to ekane ti to ekane afou ixere pws tha ton piasoun? Eisai ektos

    ReplyCancel
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  1. BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site » Blog Archive » Greek championship: Olympiacos comes back in final five minutes to take game three, 76-68
    11 years ago
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    11 years ago

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ballineurope
12 years ago 16 Comments FIBA, MoreAntonis Fotsis, Dimitris Diamantidis, ESAKE, Greece, Ioannis Bourousis, Kostas Tsartsaris, Mike Batiste, Olympiacos, Panathinaikos, Team Greece
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