A game fought but lost
Olympiacos lost 84-72 to Real Madrid, this being its third loss for the TOP-16 and now has a 2-3 record.
THE DEFENSE: Although Olympiacos stopped Real Madrid below its average scoring in the Euroleague (90 points), this was still not enough. The players of Giannis Sfairopoulos did not play the kind of defense their coach wants, but even when they did play it, the Madrilène with improbable and lucky threes were finding a solution.
THE OFFENSE: Worked well in the first half. In the second part of the game and especially in the first eight minutes of the second half, nothing went well. At that point -4 became -17 and then it was very hard for the Greek Champions to come back.
THE MVP: Third loss in a row for ‘Thrylos’ in the Euroleague, so there is not one player of the ‘reds’ that could be named the MVP.
KEEPING, FORGETTING: Keeps the performance by Matt Lojeski after a long time. The American – Belgian forward showed to be well and ready to help. It’s only needed for hime to build up strength, so as to be able to stay longer on the floor. Forgets the bad performance of the third quarter.
THE POINTS
The quarters: 17-19, 41-35, 63-48, 84-72.
Real Madrid (Laso): Rivers 6, Nocioni 10 (2), Doncic, Reyes 11 (1), Rodriguez 11 (2), Ayon 11, Carroll 9 (3), Llull 18, Tompkins 2, Hernan-Gomez 4, Taylor 2.
Olympiacos (Sfairopoulos): Johnson-Odom 1, Hunter 14 (5/82p, 11reb), Papapetrou 11 (2/43p.), Spanoulis 1 (4as), Strawberry 3 (1), Milutinov 6, Printezis 5, Mantzaris 7 (1), Hackett 14 (3/53p, 3as), Lojeski 9, Αthinaiou.
THE QUOTES
GIANNIS SFAIROPOULOS: «Congratulations to Real Madrid for the victory. They played well, especially in the second half. The rhythm decided the winner of the game. I think we only played good defense in the first quarter, we forced them to shoot poorly, and got them out of rhythm. In the second quarter we even led by four, controlled the game, but we lost our concentration, allowed easy points, more than we should have and they built a difference. They owned the third quarter, just like the beginning of the fourth one, we did not control the rebounds, we could not control the tempo and then we tried to come back, but we couldn’t get the defensive rebounds, they got all their offensive ones and that gave them easy scoring at the fast break. That’s their style, the difference went to -20 for us. We tried to close in. We now need to work harder and come back stronger. We need to be more consistent, fight for 40 minutes. When you play on the road and the momentum changes, you need to be mentally ready to fight and now allow the game to get out of your hands”.
OTHELLO HUNTER: «It was a tough game. We played well on both ends of the court in the first half. However, in the second half, Real was better and got a difference. Although we really tried hard, we should have done more”.