Francisco and Yabusele Threes Lift Panathinaikos Past Baskonia 85-79

By Taki Panos

With about 90 seconds left, the Telekom Center Athens went very quiet. Baskonia, the team at the bottom of the table, had just tied the game at 79-79, and a second straight home loss suddenly looked possible. It did not happen. Panathinaikos beat Baskonia 85-79 on Thursday, October 22, 2026, in round 7 of the EuroLeague, as ERT and TalkBasket reported, with back-to-back threes from Sylvain Francisco and Guerschon Yabusele settling it in the final minute. The Greens move to 6-1 and stay on top of the standings.

Some context for anyone just tuning in. A week earlier, Panathinaikos lost at home to Hapoel Tel Aviv, their first defeat of the EuroLeague season, per TalkBasket and Sportske.net. Baskonia arrived with a 1-5 record and a new man on the bench, Velimir Perasović, who took over after the club fired Galbiati, according to El Correo. On paper, this was the ideal night to bounce back. On the floor, it was anything but easy.

The first quarter set the tone, and not in a good way for the hosts. Nigel Hayes-Davis started strongly for a 6-2 lead in the third minute, but Panathinaikos made five turnovers, hit just one of seven threes and left gaps in the paint, per ERT. Baskonia caught up at 18-18 and then went ahead 21-20 on an AJ Lawson three at the end of the period. Not the start Zeljko Obradovic was hoping for.

The defense looked better in the second quarter. Panathinaikos held Baskonia to nine points through the 16th minute and opened a 35-29 lead, with Hayes-Davis again finding answers on offense, ERT reported. The shooting stayed cold, though, at one of nine from deep, and the turnovers climbed to nine. Baskonia closed to 39-38, Kendrick Nunn and Mathias Lessort answered with a 4-0 run, and Matteo Spagnolo drove for a layup at the buzzer to make it 43-40 at halftime.

The third quarter was the best stretch of the night for the home side. Panathinaikos raised the defensive pressure, hit three threes and leaned on Lessort under the basket. Greek forward Dinos Mitoglou also made his mark off the bench, scoring 8 points on four of four inside the arc in about ten minutes, per the box score published by El Correo. A 16-9 run made it 59-49 in the 27th minute, the first double-digit lead of the game, and the quarter ended 63-54, ERT reported.

Then the fourth quarter opened and the problems came back. Stefan Joksimovic and his teammates punished every turnover and missed rebound, and a 16-6 Baskonia run turned the game into a 70-69 lead for the visitors in the 34th minute, per ERT. Nunn finally hit his first three in five attempts to spark a response, and Lessort scored seven straight points to make it 79-72 in the 37th minute. It looked done. It was not.

Joksimovic hit a three after two straight misses by Badio, cutting it to 79-75, and then Spagnolo found Kenneth Faried for the tying basket at 79-79 with about a minute and a half left, as ERT and El Correo described it. Obradovic called timeout, and the play worked perfectly: Francisco hit a three for 82-79, per El Correo. Lawson missed from deep at the other end, and Yabusele buried another three for the final 85-79.

Lessort led Panathinaikos with 20 points on nine of ten two-pointers, plus six rebounds, per TalkBasket and the El Correo box score. Hayes-Davis added 18 points and seven rebounds. Nunn, who returned in the Greek league last weekend, made his first EuroLeague appearance of the season and finished with 11 points and five assists in about 20 minutes, TalkBasket reported. Francisco had 10 points and 11 assists. The team shot only seven of 27 from three. For Baskonia, Spagnolo scored 16, Joksimovic 13 and Cameron Frisch 11.

Nobody in green pretended it was a great performance. "We showed once again that we have character. The game was decided by good possessions at the end, we got two good shots and we made them," Obradovic said, as in.gr reported (translated from Greek). He added that the team does not have many days to work and would watch the video to understand its mistakes. Hayes-Davis was even more direct, telling Eurohoops: "We didn't play up to the Panathinaikos standard." Then he moved on: "It's a long season, so we're not going to celebrate a win or dwell on a loss."

The table still looks great. After Thursday's games, Panathinaikos lead the EuroLeague at 6-1, ahead of Fenerbahce and Olympiacos at 5-1, per Gazzetta, and those two meet in Piraeus on Friday, October 23. Baskonia drop to 1-6, level with Armani Milan at the bottom. In a 20-team league with a long regular season, a cushion in October is no guarantee of anything, but it is a lot better than chasing.

My take: this was the kind of win good teams collect without enjoying it. The three-point shooting was poor, the turnovers in the first half were sloppy, and letting a 1-6 team erase a seven-point lead late at home should worry the coaching staff more than the final score suggests. But the response to the 79-79 tie was calm and clear. One timeout, one good look, one made shot, then another. Hayes-Davis is right that the standard is higher. Still, winning ugly is a skill, and Panathinaikos have a lot of it.

There is no rest. Panathinaikos host Karditsa in the Greek Basket League on Saturday, October 24, at 7 PM, per the club, and then welcome Armani Milan for round 8 of the EuroLeague on Tuesday, October 27, at 9:15 PM Greek time, according to Sport24 and Novasports. A trip to Anadolu Efes follows on October 30. If you are planning to catch a game in person, our list of things to do in Athens will help fill the rest of the trip. Keep an eye on our Greek Sports section for every result. Six and one. Ugly or not, it counts.

Sources: ERT, TalkBasket, El Correo, in.gr, Sportske.net, Eurohoops, Gazzetta, Sport24, Novasports, Panathinaikos BC.

Image: Panathinaikos BC crest, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).