Olympiacos and V-Span: unstoppable…
Malaga led 8-4 at the beginning of the game, but with a 9-0 streak our team took the lead 8-13. However, defensive problems did not allow the Back2Back European Champions to maintain it, hence the first quarter ended 23-20.
In the second quarter, the reds with Matt Lojeski having taken action in offense succeeded in taking a 27-30 lead. Nevertheless, the Spanish team putting full court pressure, forced continuous turnovers from the players of Giorgos Bartzokas. With a partial 10-2 run the team of Juan Plaza made 27-32. Dunston and Lojeski gave some solutions and the helped the reds close in 46-41 at half-time.
In the beginning of the third quarter, Malaga was leading by 10 (51-41), seven minutes to the end of the quarter. At that point it was the players of Bartzokas that reacted and with a partial 19-11 streak in six minutes Olympiacos closed in 62-60 with the third quarter ending 65-62 in favor of the hosts.
Vassilis Spanoulis took over in the last quarter and with three three-pointers from … London gave Olympiacos a 67-71 lead, five minutes to end of the game. The Euroleague MVP was unstoppable in the fourth quarter and gave the team the boost necessary to reach victory. A partial 7-18 in the fourth quarter gave Olympiacos a 72-80 lead and sealed victory.
Τhe quarters: 23-20, 46-41, 65-62,
Unicaja (Plaza): Sabonis 4, Vidal, Calloway 10, Suarez 10 (1), Granger 6, Vasquez 6, Toolson 2, Kuzminskas 8, Dragic 6, Hettsheimeir 11 (1), Caner-Medley 11 (1).
Olympiacos (Bartzokas): Petway 3 (1), Law 3, Dunston 13, Spanoulis 21 (4), Perperoglou 8 (1), Sloukas 3 (1), Begic, Printezis 8, Mantzaris 4, Katsivelis, Lojeski 19 (3).
GIORGOS BARTZOKAS: “It was a great game in a fantastic atmosphere. Two very good teams with different goals at the moment. Obviously, the key has been the way we dealt with the game in defense. We may have scored more than 41 points in its half-time and we may not have been good in defense in the first half, but in the second one defense gave us the victory, as well the way we moved the ball, against a team that is very good in the transition, as well as in offensive rebounding. We were in need of that kind of performance we made in the second half and we are happy to be continuing in the Euroleague already having scored 6 victories. Good luck to Unicaja. The problem for us in the first half had been lack of patience in offense. We made some good choices in the first quarter, but not in the second one. We made a lot of mistakes and game easy scoring to Malaga, that’s why they went to high score. No, we don’t love come-backs, but we have patience in our game, we remain focused to what we do, we keep a high tempo and each one that comes on the floor during these 40 minutes is ready to hale. We had a clear head and good choices in the end”.
BRYANT DUNSTON: “Our offense hadn’t been the problem in the first half. The problem has been our defense, that was simply tragic, there was simply no defense in the first half. We should have been focused from the beginning of the game. We showed concentration in defense in the second half and got the victory. We are not focusing on the 6-0 record, but we rather have a different approach to every game, we learn from each game and we become better through the procedure”.