Even without captain Vassilis Spanoulis and three other injured players, Olympiakos overcame PAOK to stay one point ahead of rival Panathinaikos, who had seen off KAO Dramas on the road a couple of hours earlier.

PAOK has beaten Panathinaikos this year but it succumbed 88-72 to visiting Olympiakos in Thessaloniki for its second straight defeat. If Olympiakos avoids a loss of more than six points when it visits Panathinaikos, it will likely clinch the top spot in the regular season.

The Greens faced a tough challenge at Drama but after sparring with an equal partner for 30 minutes they managed to emerge victorious with an 81-65 score from the game against struggling KAO Dramas.

Dominic Waters avenged the annulment of Kolossos Rhodes’ home win over Apollon Patras a couple of weeks earlier by helping his team beat third-placed Aris in exactly the same fashion, through a free throw in the very end (78-77). In fact Kolossos required overtime to beat its visitor, in yet another gripping game on Rhodes.

In other games fifth-placed AEK thrashed Nea Kifissia 97-73, while Trikala scored probably its most important win this season as it saw off Apollon 83-70 to climb to ninth and steer clear of trouble for good.

The drop zone contains all-but-relegated Panionios, that went down 83-74 to Korivos at Amaliada, and Panelefsiniakos that was no match for host AGO Rethymnou (85-67).