The first defeat
Olympiacos' invincible streak ended in Vitoria. The 'reds' lost 89-70 to Laboral Kutxa, but still hold the first ranking spot of the group.
Olympiacos was bad in Vitoria with only the captain Vassilis Spanoulis being together with Bryant Dunston the only ones to perform well. Kill-Bill's 27 points gave him a total of 2,522 Euroleague points scored, thus placing him 4th among the competition's top scorers and is only a basket away from the third spot held by Jaka Lakovic.
However, this historical game for Spanoulis was not also a winning game for Olympiacos. The 'reds' did not make a good start in Vitoria and never got into rhythm till the end. Even when half way through the fourth quarter they managed to close in the score, they did not achieve a total come back both due to bad choices and continuous free throws made by the Spanish team.
On the other hand, the home team, Laboral, was dealing its last card in terms of qualification options for the Euroleague "16", were shooting amazingly well in the first half of the game, as well as in the beginning of the second half. The Basques took advantage of Olympiacos' nervous game and took control of the tempo which they maintained to the end with Heurtel, Begic and Shengelia having a great evening.
ΤHE QUARTERS: 24-17, 44-37, 68-52, 89-70
LABORAL KUTXA (Navarro): Iverson 3, Causeur 9(2), Shengelia 14, Perkins, Tillie, Begic 12, Vujacic 4, San Emeterio 12(1), Heurtel 18(1), Bertans 17(3)
OLYMPIACOS (Sferopoulos): Petway, Hunter 4, Dunston 12, Spanoulis 27(1), Sloukas 5(1), Agravanis 7, Mantzaris 2, Kavvadas, Lafayette 6(1), Darden 7
GIANNIS SFAIROPOULOS: Congratulations to Laboral for their victory. They deserved it being a much better team tonight. We did not stay with the plan we had prepared for the game and allowed many easy points against our defense, while at the same time we did not succeed in stopping their key players. When the home team scores 90 points it's tough for the guest to have a chance at victory.
OLIVER LAFAYETTE: We had no energy in our game, we did not play an aggressive defense and we did not succeed in finding rhythm with our offense. It's certain that it's difficult for us to lose first place of the group and they were playing for their lives in front of their fans. We have to leave this game behind and move ahead.
MILAN TOMIC: We did not focus at all in our defense and we received too many points. Up to now we were relying on our defense and in no quarter did we keep Laboral below 20 points. We did not play good defense and thus we couldn't find easy points in our offense. They took as to a set game and that's what brought the defeat.
ΙBON NAVARRO: We played a totalitarian game for 40 minutes. We may not have stopped Spanoulis, but we stopped all the rest. We are still alive in the Euroleague and that's what counts because that's what we had wanted the most. The key for me tonight was not our offense, despite the 90 points, but rather our defense for stopping a team like Olympiacos from high scoring.