Finals: AEK Larnakas is the new chanpion for the season 2012-2013!! - Apr 5, 2013
After fifteen years the team of Petrolina AEK Larnakas is returning back to the titles after beating for a third time in the finals (best of five series) the team of CytaVision Apoel and succeeded to win the league after the 3-1 record against the Nicosia team!! Coach Nikolas Papadopoulos is the new champion for the season 2012-2013, the Larnaka team manages to qualify in the finals even though having a home court disadvantage after breaking it against Etha Engomis, last season's champion with 3-1 and with the same score tonight the Larnaka team celebrated the champion! The final score of the tonight's game was 71-76 and even though the Lefkotheon home court of Apoel was packed with more than 2.500 fans, the team of AEK with a new MVP tonight as the usual suspects Michalis Mihalis Kakiouzis (206-F-76) and Charon Fisher were not the MVP's but the American Dion Dion Dixon (190-G-89, college: Cincinnati) was tonight the MVP of the game with his 20 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals was the main reason for this great road win for AEK Larnakas. From a close distance the player who won also the last two seasons the championship and seems that he has his own way to play very well in the most crucial games (as he did so with Etha's jersey last year in the finals against Keravnos) Ken Ken Tutt (185-PG-84, college: ORU). The American player who seems that he is rejuvenating in the play-offs, at least that is what he did in the last four years, ended the game with 14 points, 5 rebounds and 1 assists in 26 minutes in the court.
The periods of the game were: 22-20, 39-35, 51-57 and 71-76.
The game was a derby from the beginning and especially at th first minutes, AEK with an amazing crescent from behind the arc took over the game and the lead with 5-14, Apoel balanced the game with solid defense over Mihalis Kakiouzis and Fisher and in the remaining of the first half Apoel kept the paste and the small leading mainly due to the personalities of the trio, Dante Stiggers (188-PG-82, college: S.Mississippi), Troupe and Wells, while AEK was following since the key players of the team, Fisher (ended up the game with 6 points in only 12 minutes in the court), Subotic (ended up the game with 6 points and 9 rebounds in 35 minutes in the court) and Mihalis Kakiouzis (ended up the game with 8 points, 9 rebounds and 3 steals in 30 minutes in the court) were not exactly in their best productive day, so in this first half Dion Dixon, Ken Tutt and Panteli with Harrison were able to assist their team to remain just 4 points behind by the end of the first half.
In the second half though, and especially in the third period AEK changed gear and speed up, Coach Nikolas Papadopoulos used more players in the court and received some points from Garcia and Dion Dixon while Ken Tutt was productive too, so Apoel without the scoring from Davis as he was awful in the 28 minutes played in the court and reminded nothing of the Davis who played two nights ago in Larnaka against the same team and scored 30 points, end up the game with one and only point while the other keys of Coach Konstantinidis were also in a very bad shape since Chan scored just 2 points while Kremen added 5, without any real assistance coming from the bench the team of Apoel lost the third period with 12-22 and the total momentum went to the visiting site of Coach Nikolas Papadopoulos .
The fourth period was more balanced with AEK keeping the paste but Apoel at the last minutes of the game cutting the deficit to as little as one point but in the most crucial phase of the game, Mihalis Kakiouzis stole the ball from Morrison (after the American dashed down the offensive rebound) and with the foul won , the Greek international succeeded to score both his free throws and end up the game once and for all since Dante Stiggers three pointer was not successful. The Larnaka team won the title on a road win and is really a a great success since everybody was thinking the fifth game and not the 4th one... The champion team of AEK Larnakas is 100% fair winner and fair champion as it is the team which kept the same roster as last season and actually with the addition of Michalis Mihalis Kakiouzis became even much stronger and more experienced than ever. The difference of the two teams was more than obvious also in the regular season but in the play-offs, Apoel gave its best but wasn't enough against the team of AEK Larnakas
Simple stats of the last game of the season 2012-2013
AEK overcame in the rebounding area for another one game as the Larnaka team dashed down 42 rebounds against 35 of Apoel.
Apoel was better in the turnovers with only 10 against the 17 of AEK and in the assists with 12 against only 8 for AEK but in the total stats of the shots the visiting site was much better as it overcame in all the division the Nicosia team as follows:
Keravnos wins Super Cup Trophy before the start of the League. The team overcame Michelin Etha Engomis Nicosia 79:68 to start the season with the title. Tony Crocker (201-G/F-87, college: Oklahoma) nailed 30 points and was named MVP of the game. Both teams scored 20 points each in the first period. Keravnos played better in the second frame and grabbed 43:37 at the halftime. The battle continued in the court as Etha Engomis Nicosia reduced to just 2 points at the end of the third period. Due to the final push in the last stanza Keravnos managed to take 11-point win. Georgios Diamantopoulos (196-F/G-80, agency: Interperformances) poured in 18 points for the winners and Aleksandar Damjanovic (206-C/F-73) added 9. Bobby Maze (191-PG-86, college: Tennessee) finished the game with 6 points. C.J. Williams (195-G, college: N.Carolina St.) ended up with 17 points in the losing effort, while Donte Poole (190-G-89, college: Murray St.) and Taron Downey (186-G-82, college: Wake Forest) scored 11 each.
Etha Engomis is the new (old) Cup winner taking down Keravnos 64-68! - Feb 22, 2013
Michelin Etha Engomis beat Keravnos in the finals and won another title, adding its third cup in the last four years playing in the finals. On the other hand, Keravnos lost its successful winning series in the cup finals and for another one season (like most of the season's the last decade) in a crucial game the key players of the team were not able to play some decent game. Having a catastrophically third period where the Strovolos team scored all and all six points and with the three of four Americans being in a dramatic afternoon since the really broke the baskets as they couldn't score at all, with newcomer Stokes having 1 of 6 shots, Maze 3 of 8 and Crocker 2 of 13!!, Ivan Maras (207-PF-86) and Donte Poole (190-G-89, college: Murray St.) were much more ready to add a title in their menu! The game was a derby from the early beginning with Etha being more aggressive and showing from the beginning that Coach Adamou's players wanted much more this title than the "supposed" to be favorite of the game team of Keravnos. So with Ogooluwa Adegboye (182-PG-87, college: St.Bonaventure) and Donte Poole in a great shooting start they took a lead of 0-5 and 3-9 and with Maras dominating in both edges the deficit went to a double digit with 8-18 with Crocker either missing his shots or falling in mistakes and false balls. Coach Yiannaras time-out was not enough to act as an awaking for Keravnos and Etha reached the double score when Cup's three pointers made the score 12-23, 2.56 to the end of the period. The end of the first period found Etha to adding its first small step towards the title since the 17-26 was giving to the Engomis players a small advantage, mainly on the psychological factor and momentum.
In the second period, Keravnos was more relaxed and with Maze (first three pointers in the game) Demertzis and Vaughn cut the deficit to 26-30 6.14' to the end of the first half. Ogooluwa Adegboye and Cup were there and with a small 4-0 gave to Etha a deficit of +8 26-34, 4.38'' before the end of the period. The next two minutes the teams were not able to score but Vaughn broke this silence for Keravnos to make the score 31-35, less than 2 minutes to go. Cup, Johnson and Williams lost three concecutive offenses for Keravnos and the Strovolos team with the veteran Aleksandar Damjanovic (206-C/F-73) cut the deficit even more to 33-35, 1.12' before the end. Etha continue the bad momentum and lost another two offenses with Downey and Donte Poole to give the chance to Demertzis first to balance the game to 35-35 and some seconds after the new missing three pointer by Cup to give the chance to Aleksandar Damjanovic to give the lead to Keravnos for the first time since the beginning of the game with 37-35, which was the score of the first half since Dejan Cup missed both his free throws at a zero time and lost the chance to balance the game once more.
The catastrophic third period for Keravnos begun all of a sudden with a basket by Aleksandar Damjanovic to reach the Strovolos team maximum deficit in the game for the first and last time to 39-35, this basket was scored just nine seconds after the beginning of the third period and from 9.51 to 1.42 which means nearly 8 minutes Etha did the amazing 0-18!! to actually winning (in psychology) the Cyprus Cup. Never the less, in these 8 minutes Keravnos missed 4 offenses with Crocker, 3 offenses with Stokes, 2 offenses with Owens, 3 offenses with Aleksandar Damjanovic (2 of them were turnovers) and one turnover by Maze and Trisokkas which means in pure numbers that Keravnos lost 14 offenses and did 4 turnovers!! It could be a world record!! Never the less, the game continued and in the remaining 1.42 ' to the end of the third period, Keravnos scored 4 points with Crocker to cut the deficit to 43-53 since Maze did another turnover at the end.
the 4th period started with Zvonko Buljan (206-F-87, college: TCU) scoring both his throws from the charity line, while Trisokkas scored his first basket with a tip in after a missed shot by Crocker. Maze and Trisokas took over for Keravnos and with personal points (6 per head) balanced the game to 55-55, 6.06' to the end.. Maras was there and when the mode was changing the experienced power forward / center scored 5 consecutive points to give a crucial +5, 57-62 with 1.42' to the end of the game, In the in between time Crocker and Maze did another pair of turnovers. The time out of Coach Yiannaras helped a bit Keravnos since Zvonko Buljan scored the three pointers to the 60-62 to make the game once more a derby. Williams and Aleksandar Damjanovic scored a pair of Baskets with less than a minute to go, and the score became 62-64. Zvonko Buljan's fifth foul was a great loss for Keravnos since the Croat was the major thread for Etha. Downney scored olt the one of two shots from the charity line but Crocker's three pointer to balance the game was once more unsuccessful and with 25 seconds to go, Keravnos delayed to do the foul so in the 17 seconds Crocker did the foul to Donte Poole, the American missed the one of the two free throws to reshape the score to 62-66, Demertzis scored both his free throws in the 13 seconds to the end to make the grant finale even more tragic for his team, since the 64-66 remain exactly the same after the two missing shots by Wyatt but Keravnos without Zvonko Buljan in its roster missed the fatal defensive foul as Donte Poole jumped higher to dash down the most important rebound for his team with 8 seconds to go, Downned who earned the foul from Owens missed the one of the two free throws, for the 64-67 but the veteran Aleksandar Damjanovic missed both the free throws at the end and in the 5 seconds to finally have a winner since Ivan Maras simply scored the one of two free throws at a dead time to give the title to his team!!
Papadopoulos
