First round ends with a victory
Olympiacos bested Rethymno 85-70 on the road and ended first round of the SKRATS Basket League with a 12-1 record.
The game started very well for Olympiacos that took a lead of 5-7 points from the beginning. The ‘reds’ never looked back, they stepped on the gas pedal in the second quarter and disappeared into the Rethymnon horizon to close the first half 33-50. The Piraeus team maintained the difference to digit numbers and reached the final 85-70 victory.
THE DEFENSE: In the second and fourth quarter it was exactly what Giannis Sfairopoulos wants to see from his players. There were good and bad moments in the said game and the Piraeus team stopped their opponents at 70 points.
THE OFFENSE: Once again it worked the way Sfairopoulos wants. Great pluralism, eleven players scored out of the twelve that played the game and Thrylos scored a total of 85 points.
THE MVP: The title can be shared by four. Hackett, Strawberry, Printezis and Hunter had their separate good periods in the game and they all together pushed the rest so as to make a good performance and reach 12 victories in 13 games.
KEPPING, FORGETTING: Olympiacos keeps winning an important victory on the road coming from a tough on the road Euroleague game. The energy shown was the proper and is now focusing on the game against Bamberg. Olympiacos is only forgetting the bad – defense wise – third quarter when the team received 21 points.
THE POINTS
The quarters: 19-26, 33-50, 54-66, 70-85
Rethymno (Skourtopoulos): Kloof 3 (1), Schizas 8, Giannopoulos 7, Stone 7 (2), Carter 14, Maiden 8, Schaftenaar 4, Tsakaleris 2, Harrow 15, Panaretakis 2, Doulgerakis, Theodoridis
Olympiacos (Sfairopoulos): Spanoulis 2, 13 Strawberry 13 (1), Milutinov, Printezis 12 (2), Mantzaris 6 (6reb.), Odom 7 (5assists), James 7 (7reb.), Hunter 10 (7reb.), Papapetrou 8, Agravanis 4, Hackett 11 (3), Athinaiou 5 (1).
QUOTES
THANASSIS SKOURTOPOULOS: «I would like to congratulate Giannis and the team of Olympiacos not only for today’s game but also because we have seen excellent games from them in both Europe and Greece. I wish them well and hope the team succeeds its goals. In regard to today’s game, what I had wanted to tell the guys was that we were playing one of the best teams in Europe and we should be giving them the respect they deserve, meaning we should be the toughest and most competitive possible. Because games like that can only give us positive feedback and I believe that up to a point we did it. I think that the negative part was our poor shooting percentages in free throws. All the guys functioned very well. We are getting ready through practice to play the next two games that are decisive for our course. A bad start is still haunting us and we need to find victories away from Rethymno that will help us breathe so as to play better basketball because the team has real talent and a lot of potential”.
GIANNIS SFAIROPOULOS: “We knew our mission was going to be tough. Rethymno is a very athletic team that plays with a lot of energy. They are very good on open court and we should remain very careful to control the tempo. I think that in general we did that, especially in the first half and the fourth quarter. We built a difference during the last minutes of the game. In general, we were in control of the rhythm and the score all the way through. We had definitely expected Rethymno to react in the second half. They played very well indeed. We lost the “battle” with rebounding, and the score shrank. I think we had the experience and quality required and the game went our way. It was a difficult journey because we had two very demanding games to play and I have to congratulate my players for responding. I think it was very important that all our players we ready to help. This is what we need to see. Congratulations to my players and to Rethymno”
SHAWN JAMES: «It was a very strong game, which we had expected from the beginning. We made some mistakes at first but we managed to find rhythm and thus we won”.