In the second half the Greek champion ran away with the game, reducing it to an opportunity for some new faces to feature on the court.

However the Greens proved too error-prone to take the chance they were given and wasted several attacks to go down by four in the end.

Tarpley had played in Greece for Olympiakos as well as Aris and Iraklis in Thessaloniki.

On Wednesday PAOK suffered a 71-59 defeat at Limoges in France for the Eurocup.

This was the only league game played this weekend, with the 12th round of games scheduled for January 10-12.

Hunter scored 18 points and collected seven rebounds against an error-prone Unicaja.

Victory was crucial for Panathinaikos as it could hardly afford to lose its opening home game.

Looking at the top-16 of the Euroleague, the two teams showed in good shape in a game that may determine very little for the course of the championship.

Olympiakos went down at Galatasaray 79-74 on Thursday for its second defeat in the first round of the Euroleague.

Ninth win in a row for Panathiniaikos.