Thrylos at the top
Olympiacos beat Limoges 76-67 for the ninth day of the Euroleague Regular Season and "sealed" first place of the second group. Printezis with 13p., Mantzaris with 12 and Papapetrou with 11 were the top scorers for the team of Giannis Sfairopoulos.
Olympiacos began the game well and imposed the rhythm from the beginning. Printezis, Mantzaris and Athinaiou were doing a good job and the Greek Champions were leading 15-20 at the end of the first quarter.
The Piraeus team did not play defense according to what their coach wanted resulting for the French team to score 21 points during that time. However, the offense was functioning perfectly and thus half-time ended 36-46. 'Thrylos' stepped on the accelerator in the third quarter and never looked back again reaching a +17 difference (48-65) at 30'. In the last quarter, the 'reds' maintained the difference above 10 points and reached a comfortable victory, securing first place.
The quarters: 15-20, 36-46, 48-65, 67-76.
Limoges: Schaffartzik 5 (1), Wojciekowski 2, Daniels 10, Gatens 8 (2), Westermann 14 (2), Payne 2, Kamara 6, Boungou-Colo 2, Traore 14, Zerbo 4.
Olympiacos (Sfairopoulos): James, Hunter 6, Papapetrou 11 (2), Strawberry 9 (1), Tsairelis 4 (2), Μilutinov 4, Mouratos, Printezis 13 (1), Agravanis, Mantzaris 12 (2), Hackett 9 (2), Athinaiou 8 (2).
GIANNIS SFAIROPOULOS:
Giannis Sfairopoulos was initially asked for the memories from the Limoges - Olympiacos games that were derbies in the past and responded that "there are memories from the Olympiacos - Limoges games that were derbies indeed. We wanted to win and end with the first place in the group and we want to become better every day. Limoges is a traditional team, they have won European titles, they deserve to be here.
Questioned about how does it feel to be the first Olympiacos coach to win in Limoges, the Greek coach said that: "I'm happy and proud for my players for winning here for the first time. The players were focused, we had control of the game, control of the rhythm, we were leading from the beginning and at times we played very good basketball. Percentages show that we made a good performance, but at the end we loosened up a little. All in all, it was a good game".
GIORGOS PRINTEZIS: «It's very important to finish at the first place, that's what we worked for, we wanted to improve game after game. If we want to be a Final Four team, we need to work on many things, practice after practice and game after game".