A haul of six points in the last two minutes for CSKA Moscow’s Alexey Shved gave the Russian team a 66-64 Euroleague semifinal comeback win over reigning champion Panathinaikos on Friday.
CSKA earlier charged back from 14 points down at the end of the first quarter to continue a 3-0 winning record against the Athens team this season and earn its first Euroleague final since 2009 against either Barcelona or Greece’s Olympiacos.
Shved turned a four-point deficit into a two-point lead at the death with two two-point baskets and two of four potential free throws, but there was one last moment of drama.
Milos Teodosic, last season’s Euroleague MVP for Panathinaikos, missed two free throws against his old team with nine seconds on the clock as the large and vocal contingent of Greek traveling fans whistled and jeered.
The Greek team charged, but Romain Sato fell with the ball as he closed in on the CSKA basket.
Panathianikos seized the initative in a frantic first quarter, going 8-2 after three minutes and then 16-4 soon after as forward Mike Baptiste powered the Greek team’s charge. CSKA’s ex-Utah Jazz guard Andrei Kirilenko then uncharacteristically missed two free throws as Panathianaikos’ dominance continued.
Guard Dimitris Diamantidis took the Athenian team to 27-13 ahead in the final minute of the first period, before a late exchange of shots made it 29-15 at the break.
CSKA stormed back into the game in the second quarter, going on a 13-0 scoring run at one stage to draw level at 32-32 as Kirilenko started to find his form and CSKA contained Diamantidis and Batiste on defense.
In the third quarter, Kirilenko was the star, posting seven points and four rebounds.
One Kirilenko two-point effort gave the Russians their first lead with six and a half minutes left of the quarter, but CSKA were left four points down at 55-51 going into the final quarter after a late Panathinaikos flurry.
In the fourth quarter, a Nenad Krstic wrist shot two-pointer gave CSKA lead with 7 minutes 30 seconds left, before Sarunas Jasikevicius brought Panathianaikos back into the lead with his ninth and tenth points of the game, breaking his season high Euroleague score in the process.
The score held at 59-58 until there were 3 minutes 3 second left, when Alexei Shved gave the Russians the lead with a two-pointer.
Jasikevicius then surged the Greek team into the lead with a two-point wrist shot and a big three-pointer in quick succession, before Shved gave CSKA the edge in the finale.
CSKA faced the Greek champion for the third time this season, after the Muscovites won the first two games, a narrow 78-76 victory in Athens in November and an emphatic 91-75 in Moscow in December during the first Euroleague group stage.
