Final Four Classic, 2009: Panathinaikos Athens-CSKA Moscow

Panathinaikos prevails again over CSKA in a battle of Champions.

Panathinaikos lifted its second crown in three years by beating previous season’s champion CSKA 73-71 in a thrilling final at o2 World in Berlin. One of the most exciting basketball title games in history went to the wire and wasn’t decided until Ramunas Siskauskas’s attempted three at the buzzer bounced out. That allowed Panathinaikos to celebrate its fifth Euroleague title and the seventh for head coach Zeljko Obradovic, the winningest head coach in Euroleague history.

Vassilis Spanoulis was named Final Four MVP after scoring 13, including a clutch triple with less than three minutes to play. Panathinaikos had 10-0 runs in both the first and second quarters to surge ahead and Sarunas Jasikevicius and Drew Nicholas finished the second period with back-to-back three-pointers to give the Greens a 48-28 halftime lead. They would prove to need each of those as CSKA held the Greens scoreless for more than 8 minutes, scoring 17 unanswered points to come back. CSKA would narrow the gap to 1 in the closing seconds, but couldn’t complete the comeback. Antonis Fotsis added 13 points and 8 rebounds for the winners and Jasikevicius and Dimitris Diamantidis scored 10 each. J.R. Holden paced CSKA with 14 points and Trajan Langdon and Siskauskas each scored 13.

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