A victory with the motors off…
Olympiacos bested Kolossos Rhodes 70-65 and reached 19 victories in 20 games for the League. Antic, Powell and Law were the best players for the European and Greek Champions.
Law and Antic led their team – mates at scoring in the beginning with the ‘reds’ leading 20-16. Hines and Powell resumed action in the second quarter and the Piraeus team kept leading at the end of the half-time by one point (33-32).
Kolossos Rhodes took over the lead by 4 (43-47), but it was Law and Antic that restored … order and their team ran a partial 11-2 to close the third quarter 54-49.
The Giorgos Bartzokas’ team kept control of the game throughout the fourth quarter making the final 70-65.
Τhe quarters: 20-16, 33-32, 54-49, 70-65
Olympiacos (Bartzokas): Hines 9, Law 14 (2), Antic 15 (1), Spanoulis 3, Perperoglou, Shermadini, Sloukas 5, Powell 12 (1),Perkins, Papanikolaou 12, Katsivelis
Kolossos (Fragkias): Georgalis 3, Koubouras 4, Hutten 13, Kalaitzis 3 (1), Vougioukas, Kalabokis 5, Outerbridge 3 (1), Koukoulas 1, Nadjfeji 5 (1), Langford 7 (1), Kapelan 7 (1), 14
GIORGOS BARTZOKAS: “Following the victory against Siena, we have had two days to prepare this game and fatigue is not an excuse. All those who play have to be ready not to give the opponent the right to take from them what they have worked for. I have to congratulate Kolossos, they helped us since they used a lot of zone defense, which we are going to face for some time during the game against Maccabi. Victory is the only positive aspect out of this game. I told my players during half time that had lost 11 free throws and we had given 10 offensive rebounds to Kolossos, clearly due to lack of concentration and underestimating their effort during practice, but also due to underestimating the opponent”.
KOSTAS PAPANIKOLAOU: “First of all I would like to congratulate Kolossos for playing a terrific game. They were very focused on their tactics, something that we weren’t ready to do as well. At the point we are right now, we shouldn’t be looking for excuses like fatigue. The team has to be present at every game. The only positive out of all this blur is that got the victory, nothing else. Every minute on the floor is important. No one amongst us feels any good for the way we played. Tonight we have to think about what we did wrong and from tomorrow on we need to work hard because we have tough games ahead”.
VASSILIS FRAGKIAS: “It wasn’t in our plans to come and win the game, regardless of the fact that the way the game went we came very close to doing so. We hadn’t played an official game in 15 days and what we mainly wanted was to incorporate our young players into our game the most possible. We did a good job at giving Olympiacos a hard time by playing good basketball. We are mainly concerned with next week’s game, against Ikaros Kallithea in Rhodes. We have to win this game just like the rest we have to play, so as to save the category. It would only be a pity for our team not to save it. I wish Olympiacos good luck for the future”.
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