Easy qualification to the semi finals
Olympiacos bested Apollon Patron 83-73, won the series 2-0 and qualified for the semi-finals of the Greek Play-offs, where they are going to be playing against Rethymno.
The Piraeus team came into the game determined to show who the boss is from the beginning. Printezis and Powell did a very good job into giving Olympiacos a 21-13 lead.
However, the players of Giorgos Bartzokas lost their focus on defense in the second quarter and Apollon succeeded in leading at half-time 37-36.
In the second half of the game, Spanoulis, Law, Sloukas and Hines took action and gave their team a head start. Olympiacos maintained the difference around 10 points throughout the second half with the game ending 83-73 in favor of the ‘reds’ who thus won their qualification to the next round of the play-offs.
Τhe quarters: 13-21, 37-36, 60-63, 73-83
Αpollon Patron (Vetoulas): ΜcCollum 15 (2), Αrgyropoulos 7, Kaperonis, Grant 16 (1), Thanopoulos, Lianos 6, Petrovic-Stergiou 18 (2), Pelekoudas, Klaiber 11, Zafeiris, Molfetas, Turner
Οlympiacos (Bartzokas): Hines 9, Law 9 (1), Antic 5, Spanoulis 22 (4), Perperoglou 3, Sloukas 9 (1), Powell 7, Gecevicius, Printezis 12 (1), Papanikolaou 7, Katsivelis.
GIORGOS BARTZOKAS: “Congratulations to Patra for their whole performance in the regular season and their three games against us, they proved to be a serious team and I think they played a fantastic game tonight. I wish them all the best for next season and I wish they do even better than this year. As far as we are concerned, I’m very happy with our team spirit; we have had many assists and played a wholesome team game in offense.
We weren’t as focused in defense, especially in the second quarter, when we were losing by 9. Thus Apollon came into the second half under different circumstances, with greater confidence; they made some very big shots and pushed us very much. But finally, when we improved our defense and continued being a team in offense, we got to win the game. We should pin point the difference in assists and rebounds.
However, we also made 15 turnovers, and we have to analyze this and try to improve in view of the next play-offs round. Nothing is easy. The whole season has been tough. We have played too many games and there is fatigue right now, because we put pressure on the team before the Final Four so as to be in good shape not only for the Final Four, but also in the games against Anadolu Efes, now it’s only natural for our performance to take a quality dive, it’s only expected, we want to get by this without any losses and come back in good shape, if, God willing, we make the finals either against Panathinaikos or whoever else. I think that everything that is happening with our team in regard to its performance is somewhat to be expected, we that deal with the team every day had been expecting it, it’s not only the psychological melt-down that follows such a demanding tournament as the Final Four”.
ΚOSTAS SLOUKAS: “It has been a tough game for us today. I think that Patra deserves a lot of congratulating because they proved to be worthy of the final eight of the League. Congratulations for building a very well structured team. As far as the game is concerned, we did not maintain our focus for 40 minutes, I don’t know why this is happening, we need to find the solution. Of course it’s important that qualified with a 2-0 record and we are not focusing onto what comes next”.
ΝIKOS VETOULAS: “Congratulations to the coach and to Olympiacos for winning the Euroleague and for their victories against us in the play-offs. It is only obvious that they deserved to win and as far as the technical aspect of the game is concerned, I think that coach Bartzokas said it all in relation to rebounding. 28 rebounds were challenged in our post, we got 15 of them and Olympiacos another 13. Despite that, we stayed in the game for quite some time; we showed will and motivation since we were playing against the European Champion, and whoever it is that plays against the first wants to play well. I’m going to keep the selflessness we showed in the game and I would like to congratulate all my players for their effort throughout the season and for keeping the category. We are now going to discuss about the team’s next day, what we are interested in is having players that are good people as well. The choices we are going to make are a conjunction of many aspects. We want to incorporate the Greek element in the team; so far it stands within our financial means. Stability is the most important thing for me, as well as how the team reacts following an unexpected defeat. These are the keys to me”.