Easily and with Agravanis!
Olympiacos beat Panionios at the SEF 98-72 for the 7th day of the Betshop Basket League. The event of the day was the return of DimitrisAgravanis to action. The 'reds' forward stepped on the floor at 35', following 11 months of inactivity due to his injury.
Nothing was working properly for the 'reds' during the first 15 minutes of the day. Many mistakes, bad offensive choices, lost rebounds and defensive inefficiency allowed the guests to impose the tempo and build a +11 difference (20-31, at 14'). Panionios maintained its distance up to 15' (25-35), however, at that point, David Blatt's players decided to react…They played more aggressive defense, 'struck' from behind the 6.75 m. line and with a partial 20-6 turned the game around (45-41, at 20').
They didn't stop there though… They made an aggressive beginning in the second half, contained the guests offensive wise and with Nigel Williams-Goss leading the offense widened to margin to +17 (65-48, at 27'). Playing 'total' basketball, Olympiacos dominated the last quarter, got to even lead by 29 (98-69), only seconds before Kamarianos wrote the final 98-72.
* Except for Axel Toupane who was injured, GiorgosPrintezis also remained at the pitch, since coach Blatt decided to rest him.
The quarters: 18-20, 45-41, 71-56, 98-72.
Οlympiacos (Blatt): Vezenkov 15 (33PM., 6 reb., 3 as.), Μilutinov 6, Papanikolaou 10 (1), Williams-Goss 17 (4), Τimma 11 (3), Αgravanis 2, Spanoulis 9 (23pm. 7 as.), Τoliopoulos, Bogris 6, Μantzaris 3 (5as.), Strelnieks 4, LeDay 15.
Panionios (Ekonomou): Papantoniou 20(1), Berry 14(2), Τaylor 8, Harris9(3), Sinclair 3(1), Κamarianos 3(1), Diplaros 7(1), Dorsey 8.
«Agravanis returning was the most important thing!»
David Blattfocused on the return of DimitrisAgravanis to action. "Unfortunately, when you come out of a series of games like the one we were coming from, it's only logical to have some ups and downs and we had expected that. We saw that in the first half and I'm talking about defense. We pointed that out to the players during the break and they responded very well. Panionios did a very good job in the first half. They played very well. In the second half, we really played very well on both ends of the floor and that made all the difference. The greatest message and the one with the most importance to us was the return of DimitrisAgravanis. He had been out for a year and he had really worked very hard with the doctors and our physiotherapists to come back. I'm very happy for him. The whole team is very happy for him!. Physically he's at 100%, basketball wise he's a little behind, but I was really happy to see him stepping on the floor!".
Asked if apart from Agravanis returning, he thinks there was anything more to gain from the game against Panionios, he replied: "Games are like practices in a way. You can work on different scenarios, try a few things and if you can do this and win at the same time, then this is really important! I'm very happy with the team's tempo against Real and tonight. It's something we wanted for tonight and we did it…"