Lietkabelis Hand PAOK First EuroCup Loss, 95-86 in Lithuania

By Taki Panos

Somebody in Panevezys has a sense of humor. About an hour before tip-off on Tuesday, the speakers at Kalnapilio Arena played Anna Vissi's "Psychedelia" while PAOK warmed up, as Gazzetta reported. Then the hosts made the visitors dance to a different tune. Lietkabelis beat PAOK 95-86 in round three of the EuroCup regular season in Lithuania, handing Andrea Trinchieri's team its first loss in this season's competition, per to10. Both clubs now sit at 2-1.

For readers new to the club, PAOK is the big Thessaloniki side, and its basketball team is one of the most storied in Greece. If you have never been to Thessaloniki, it is a city that takes its sport seriously and its losses personally. The EuroCup is Europe's second-tier club competition, and winning it brings a EuroLeague place the following season, as Eurohoops noted when PAOK signed Donatas Motiejunas this month. That is the prize this roster was built to chase.

The first quarter was close, with Lietkabelis edging it 23-22. The second quarter was where it got away. The hosts kept finding the net from deep and stretched the lead to 50-37 before Naz Mitrou-Long cut it to 50-40 at the break, according to to10 and LRT. Giving up 50 points in a half is rarely a recipe for an away win in Europe, and PAOK knew it.

To their credit, PAOK came out of the locker room with real bite. The defensive pressure went up, a 12-2 run tied the game at 52, and a Nick Calathes three put the Greek side in front at 57-55, as PAOK's own match report described it. For a few minutes it looked like the familiar story of a good team waking up. Then Lietkabelis answered with a 19-7 run to close the quarter at 74-64, a stretch Basketball Sphere also highlighted. The lead was back in double figures and stayed there.

The numbers tell you why. Lietkabelis made 13 three-pointers at better than 60 percent, with Greek outlets counting 13 of 20 and LRT 13 of 21. Early in the fourth quarter the hosts were 11 of 15 from deep, per iefimerida. Alex Schumacher led them with 23 points, Ognjen Jaramaz added 18 and Keondre Kennedy 17. When a team shoots like that, the defense has to be close to perfect. PAOK's was not close.

On the PAOK side, Marcus Foster led with 21 points, almost all of them inside: 8 of 11 on twos, 0 of 4 from three and 5 of 8 at the line. Cedi Osman scored 17 and Breein Tyree 15. Calathes was the best all-round player in black and white, with 13 points, six rebounds and eight assists, a line both to10 and iefimerida singled out. Foster, a former Rytas Vilnius player as LRT pointed out, at least knew the territory.

The night also brought a debut. Motiejunas, the 36-year-old Lithuanian center who signed through the end of the season, played 6 minutes and 49 seconds in his first game for PAOK, in his home country of all places. He scored two points on his only shot and added a block, per LRT and to10. He spent six NBA seasons with Houston, New Orleans and San Antonio, according to Eurohoops, and Trinchieri was clear about what he expects from him: "Some size, some good screens and experience" (translated from Greek).

Trinchieri did not hide. "It is not something to do with basketball. It is a matter of energy, passion, determination, and we did not match that," he said, as Eurohoops reported (translated from Greek). He pointed to Lietkabelis shooting 62 percent from the field and winning the rebounding battle, and called the loss a reality check, the same phrase he used in his first comments to Gazzetta. He could accept losing to a better basketball team, he said, but not to one that simply wanted it more.

Mitrou-Long, the Greek-Canadian guard, gave the view from the locker room. "It's a marathon, not a sprint," he told Gazzetta (translated from Greek), adding that it felt as if the hosts did not miss a shot all night. He agreed with his coach about the energy, pointed to lost 50-50 balls, and said the starters pulled PAOK back into the game after halftime before the lead slipped again once the bench came in. An honest answer, with no excuses.

There was a Greek thread running through the home side too. Lietkabelis general manager Jonas Maciulis wrote his own chapter in Greek basketball with Panathinaikos and AEK, Gazzetta noted, and "Psychedelia" is a known favorite of Lithuanian great Sarunas Jasikevicius. Proto Thema also ran the warm-up video. So the soundtrack was half tribute, half needle. Lietkabelis had come in off a run of defeats, Trinchieri said, and played like a team with something to prove.

It has been a bruising few days for the PAOK family. Just before this trip, the football team lost 3-1 at home to Kalamata, a result we covered in our Kalamata story. Different sport, different locker room, same frustration for fans in northern Greece and in the Greek communities abroad who follow the double-headed eagle. One loss in October does not define a basketball season. It does sharpen the questions.

My take: this loss can be more useful than painful, as long as PAOK treat it the way Trinchieri framed it. The talent is obvious, with Calathes running things, Osman and Foster scoring and Motiejunas adding size. But a team that gives up 95 points and 13 threes is not losing on talent. It is losing on effort and coverage, and both are fixable within a week. I would much rather see this in round three than in March. The thing to watch is the bench, given what Mitrou-Long said.

Next up is a trip to Rhodes to face Kolossos in the Greek Basket League on Saturday, October 17 at 16:00, per Sport24, against a Kolossos side coming off its first European away win. Then PAOK host Ratiopharm Ulm in the EuroCup on Wednesday, October 21 at 20:00 at PAOK Sports Arena, according to Gazzetta. For more results like this one, keep an eye on our Greek Sports section. Lesson delivered. Now comes the response.

Sources: to10, PAOK BC, iefimerida, LRT, Eurohoops, Gazzetta, Basketball Sphere.

Image: Flag of Greece, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).