Fought, but to no avail in Barcelona
Olympiacos lost to Barcelona 78-86 in Spain, for the 20th round of the Euroleague.
The 'red & whites', who enjoyed the support of about 500 of their fans in the 'Palau Blaugrana', missed the opportunity to leave with a win, since they got to pay for the bad decision making of the last four minutes of the game.
Relying on their good perimeter percentages (mainly that of Jabari Parker), the hosts imposed the rhythm and built an 11p. lead (21-10) by 7'. The 'red & whites' put pressure in defense and with Alec Peters leading the offense, they closed in to 3p. (23-20), but the 'blaugrana' replied with a 6-0 streak, gaining a 9p. margin (29-20). Despite lacking facilitation in the second quarter (only one assist during that time and a total of 6), our team succeeded - mainly thanks to individual plays by Nigel Williams-Goss - in shrinking the difference, while a bucket and a free throw by Ignas Brazdeikis gave us the lead for the first time in the game (40-41) at 19'. Yet, again it was Barcelona that found a way to exploit on the defensive gaps of the 'red & whites' and running a partial 4-0, closed the first half at +3 (44-41).
Nothing worked right for our team in the second half though... Unforced mistakes and bad choices in the offense allowed an extremely good-shooting Barcelona to raise the difference to 14p. (73-59) at 29'. With pressing defense and a partial 13-2 run, our team found themselves from trailing by 14 (77-63) to -3 (79-76) at 36'. There was a scoreless two-minute period following for both teams, with Barcelona writing the 81-76 from the free-throw line at 38'. Olympiacos continued with very good defense, but was not able to reap the benefits in the offense, resulting in a lucky 2-pointer by Kalinic (41'' before the clock expired) and a 3-pointer by Satoransky (33'' before the end) to secure the win for Barcelona.
* The President of Olympiacos BC, Giorgos Angelopoulos and the Vice-President, Giorgos Skindilias, watched the game at the Palau.
*Naz Mitrou-Long was not included in the final 12-men roster.
The quarters: 27-20, 44-41, 75-63, 86-78.
BARCELONA
OLYMPIACOS
