PAOK won the first leg of their EuroCup second elimination round showdown with U-Mobitelco but were hardly impressive in the 79-74 victory at home.

The Greeks had three players score 13 points with Georgios Tsiakos adding 10 rebounds to his point total. And Edmund Saunders added 12 points, five rebounds and two steals.

Tab Baldwin's team will travel to Romania next week perhaps wishing they could have had a better result on their home court.

Sasa Vukas led the way for the U-Mobitelco with 17 points and Levar Seals added 14 while three other players had 12 points.

PAOK grabbed the early lead and eventually pulled away to a 15-10 lead on Dimitrios Charitopoulos's foul shots. Vukas closed U-Mobitelco to within 17-14 after one period.

Antoine Gillespie knocked down a three-pointer, then converted a three-point play followed by Nikos Kouvelas's lay-up to open a 25-14 cushion. Flavius Lapuste's three-ball trimmed the deficit to 25-20 and Ucechukwu Iheadindu evened the game at 31-31. But Lee Humphrey drained a long ball and Dimitris Verginis followed with two of his own and the Greeks' margin was back up to 44-35 at the break.

PAOK would not let the Romanians make up ground and the lead was 60-49 late in the third. Branko Cuic's two foul shots cut the advantage to 50-51 going into the fourth.

Humphrey's three-pointer re-established a 12-point lead - 65-53 with eight minutes left - and two Verginis foul shots had the lead at 73-62 with four to play. But Cuic and Seals knocked down three-pointers and Ionut Mocanu hit two free throws to cut the deficit to 76-72.

It was 78-72 when Cuic made another basket but the Romanians couldn't get any closer in the final seconds.