Panathinaikos, AEK off to 6-0 start in Greek A1

The Athenian clubs of the Greek A1 have proved to be dominant in the early stages of the 2015-16 season. Panathinaikos Athens and AEK Athens are both undefeated through six rounds of the regular season. AEK Athens protected their homecourt earlier this weekend with a 84-78 win over Apollon Patras. Panathinaikos closed out Round 6 on Monday with a convincing 61-78 victory on the road over Arkadikos. Both Arkadikos and Apollon Patras are at the bottom of the league standings with their identical 1-5 records and need to step up their game if they want to move up the ladder.

A third club worth mentioning is Olympiacos which is only one game behind them at 5-1. They dominated Aries Trikalla 69-89 and are looking pretty sharp as of late.

SEFA Arkadikos vs. Panathinaikos Athens, 61-78

Panathinaikos have been reaping the benefits of their signing of Miroslav Raduljica this off-season. The Serbian big man carried led the charge for them and was virtually unstoppable. He scored a game-high 21 points on 7-of-9 shooting from two-point range. He also made all seven of his shot attempts from the free-throw line.  While he was the only green shirt to score in double figures, the whole team got involved in the action. The visitors handed out a total of 20 assists for the game and their unselfish play got them more than a few easy baskets thanks to open looks.

Arkadikos tried to answer with their outside shooting, but their shooters had difficulty finding their range in this game. Matti Nuutinen found the most success with his long-range shooting, making 3-of-5 shots from downtown, en route to his team-high 17 points. To Arkadikos’ credit they had good defensive pressure at certain spots in the game, stealing the ball from Panathinaikos a total of 11 times.

At the end of the day a strong first half explosion by Panathinaikos was all they needed to come away with this win and retain co-leadership of the A1 standings.