The prolific guard followed up on his shooting spree from the previous round with another masterclass
Nunn shines again as Panathinaikos demolishes Baskonia, 104-69
Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens blew away visiting Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz 104-69 in Round 17 of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague and improved to 10-7, while the Spanish side dropped to 7-10 after Kendrick Nunn paced the home team with 26 points and a career-high 9 assists.
The game was marred by a serious injury to Panathinaikos center Mathias Lessort, who landed awkwardly early in the second half and appeared to have injured his ankle, having to hop off the court in excruciating pain amid screams from both sets of players and fans.
“We have nothing to celebrate and it’s very bad luck for Mathias,” the home team’s head coach Ergin Ataman said in a courtside post-game interview. “It looks like he broke his leg and the whole team was in shock after that.”
Nunn added: “We’re praying the injury is not as serious as it looks. We just need everybody to keep him in our prayers. He’s our brother and we are going to have his back, that’s for sure.”
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Lorenzo Brown added 18 points for Panathinaikos, Juancho Hernangomez netted 10 and Lessort racked up 10 points to go with 6 boards before the gut-wrenching incident which saw hordes of home fans crying in anguish.
At the other end, Chima Moneke scored 16 points and Kamar Baldwin added 10 for Baskonia, which got trampled on from start to finish.
Having scored a career-high 39 points in Tuesday’s 103-74 home rout of EA7 Emporio Armani Milan, Nunn carried on right where he left off against the Italian side and poured 14 points in the first quarter of the matchup with Baskonia, with Panathinaikos romping into a 33-12 lead.
Baskonia regained some composure early in the second and slashed the deficit to 36-21 and then 48-35 in the closing stages of the first half, but Panathinaikos was still able to take a whopping lead, 53-35, into the locker room at halftime.
The game went flat for some time after Lessort’s injury early in the third quarter and was held up moments later after a fan had collapsed with Ataman saying in his post-game interview it appeared to be a stroke.
Both teams went through the motions for the remainder of the third quarter before Panathinaikos put its foot back on the gas in the fourth, engineering a 16-0 run late in the game for a 99-64 lead.
With both teams huddled together after the buzzer, Baskonia guard Markus Howard led a prayer for Lessort with home fans repeatedly chanting the big man’s name.
“That’s my brother, it’s bad to see him down like that and I am at a loss for words,” Brown said as he barely held back the tears. “I hope he has a speedy recovery and it’s going to be tough for us to move on.”