The Hellenic NT driven by an awesome Panagiotis Vassilopoulos succeeded a solid road win, in fact the 11th (of 12 games) victory, and belongs officially in the first power group in th world cup which is going to take place in China this summer.

The game was balanced with obvious nerves on behalf of the hosts, and with a changing score on a continuous basis. It’s a statistical fact that the scored only in the first period changed 19 times!! The hosts took advantage the bad percentages of the visitors (3/13 three pointers) but they only were able to get a small deficit with a +4 before the end of the first half, but Mavroidis and Gikas had a different opinion and the score ended up to its minimum with a 34-33 by the end of the first half, in a game where the offence was not at its best from both sides.. At the beginning of the third period though the Germans added to two answered baskets to take the score to 38-33 and later on to 47-43 as they kind of “Freeze” small deficit…

The veterans at that point took over, and Vassilopoulos, Margaritis and Mavroidis scored 15 out of 17 points for their team to change the mode and the leading team initially and at the end of teh period to 47-50. The stubborn Germans didn’t give up and with a solid 11-2 reshaped the score to 60-59 with less than 4 minutes to go!!

Vassilopoulos did it again!!

With less than four minutes to go, Vassilopoulos scored, stole and assist the ball to reshape the score to 60-64 and somewhere there the experienced visiting side close the game quite easily, adding another victory in their totally succesful European tour!!

PERIODS: 16-15, 34-33, 47-50, 63-69

GERMANY: Bathel 8, Griffy 2, Lo 7, Obst 12, Saibu 6, Akpinar 10 and 7 assists, Dorett 2, Seiferth 6, Sengfelder 2, Timan 2, Tzirbes 6 and 8 rebounds

HELLAS: Athineou 6 and 5 turnovers!!, Bochoridis 7, Larentzakis 8, Margaritis 13, Vassilopoulos 12 and 6 rebounds, Chrysikopoulos 2, Gikas 5, Kaselakis 3, Mavroidis 8 and 9 rebounds, Saloustros 2.