In Athens's Basketball celebration last night (OAKA) where the First Eurostar took place, the basketball fans brought many happy memories in their minds. The Hellenic NT of 1987, the first ever to win the Gold medal in Eurobasket, was there to receive its festschrift. The Hellenic NT of 1987 is the reason why Greece has currently, if not the best Basketball league, one of the best, this team is also the reason why athletes like Papaloukas Zisis, Spanoulis and many others deals with basketball and as Kostas Tsartsaris stated “The reason why we play basketball is simply because of these players, these people which was an amazing blend together with the head coach Politis and took the Greek NT to the highest level against the USSR”
Kostas Politis, Panagiotis Fasoulas, Memos Ioannou, Nikos Stavropoulos, Argiris Kambouris, Fanis Christodoulou, Panagiotis Karatzas, Michalis Romanidis, Nikos Filippou and the current Head coach of the Hellenic NT, Panagiotis Giannakis were there and they were so proud exactly as they were 20 years ago!! From the Hellenic NF only Nikos Galis and Liveris Andritsos were absent. Furthermore, the Basketball show which more than 8,000 Basketball fans watched had its European veteran stars, players like: Dejan Bodiroga, Sergey Belov, Doron Jamsi, Antonelo Riva and Vladimir Tkatschenko.
The Basketball show ended with the main menu's game, the Greek national side faced a European All-Star team
The game was on a fast mode without many defensive strategies from the two coaches (Giannakis for the Greek NT and Obradovic for the Eurostars). During the first quarter the Greek NT had a slight difference mainly due to Fotsis's offensive crescent while on the Eurostar's team only Van Der Spiegel was in a full mood and was trying to bring his team closer to the score. Theodoros Papaloukas (200-G-77) was the main man as he was driving with amazing prowess and expertise the Hellenic NT (Earlier on he received the prize of the best player in the world (NBA's exception) for the year 2006. The half time brought the European champions to be leading the score 58-41!
At the beginning of the second half and the Eurostars cut the deficit (not a lot) since Giannakis gave the chance to all the players of the Hellenic NT to enjoy this Basketball celebration
Final score was 101-90 with quarters being: 22-19, 58-41, 81-65, 101-90, the scorers for the two teams were:
Hellas (Giannakis): Papaloukas 14, Zisis 10, Spanoulis 6, Vasilopoulos 4, Fotsis 20, Hatzivretas 10, Dikoudis 4, Tsartsaris 9, Diamantidis, Papadopoulos 4, Kakiouzis 4 and Bourousis 16.
Eurostars (Obradovic): Hazatz 4, Boisa 4, Becirovic 6, Pecile 8, De Miguel 5, Woicik 10, Roller 4, Van Der Spiegel 14, Grafts 5, Zevrosenko 5, Kutluai 10, Vujcic 8, Fritzon 7, Popovic.