A victorious premiere for the Champions
Olympiacos bested Koroivos Amaliadas on the road playing superb defense (88-66) and premiered this season's Basket League in the best possible fashion.
The Greek Champions began the game impressively. Mat Lojeski was scoring from every angle, the defense was unbreakable and hence the difference was up at double digits from the first minutes of the game (10-21). The same went down into the second quarter. There was offensive pluralism, defense was great once again and half time was 27-45.
It took eight minutes into the third quarter for the hosts to score ten points. Papanikolaou was on "fire" and the difference was at +25 (35-61) at 29'.
In the last quarter, the offense was still functioning properly, however, the same did not go down with defense and the hosts managed to score ten points in just 3 minutes. Green had taken … his gun and the score was 49-73 at 34'. In the last six minutes of the game, the Piraeus team played just as much as needed for the game to end and then turn their focus on the game against Real in Madrid.
THE POINTS
The quarters: 10-21, 27-45, 39-61, 66-88.
Κoroivos Amaliadas (Kalampakos): Gotcher 13 (4), Hall 14, Michaloglou 2, Chatzinikolas, Brown 14 (1), Richart 5 (1), Spyridonidis 2, Milutinovic 14 (3), Αpostolidis, Bekris 2, Katzos, Athanassopoulos.
Οlympiacos (Sfairopoulos): Birch 6 (6reb, 2st), Spanoulis 4 (4as), Printezis 10 (7reb), Papanikolaou 8 (1 3p, 4reb), Mantzaris 6 (2 3p, 4as), Green 16 (1 3p, 3reb, 2as), Toliopoulos 3 (13p), Papapetrou 6 (2 3p, 3reb), Agravanis 7, Milutinov 2 (3reb), Hackett 2, Lojeski 18 (4 3p, 7reb, 3as).
THE QUOTES
GIANNIS SFAIROPOULOS: “I wish a good season to Koroivos, to all the teams, with health for every one. We played a good game in general; we stayed focused from the beginning and got a two digit difference. We maintained control of the game throughout. I think it was a good evening with good basketball from both teams which the fans enjoyed. Good luck to Koroivos, I wish them and their coach all the best ”.
DINOS KALAMPAKOS: “I also wish a good season to all the teams. Teams like Olympiacos are well above our level. The Olympiacos players took the game above any level we could stand to be competitive. But now the game is over and we are rather satisfied. We need to have our injured players come back and see what kind of team we have. We are waiting for Van Oostrum to come back, it's only 3-4 days that Richard has started practicing. We need to see what this team can do when we are all together. We need to be competitive. I believe that all the fans here in the city enjoyed the game tonight. We tried to stay in the game as much as possible".
MAT LOJESKI: “We are really excited to have the season started. We knew that the game would not be easy, that's why we started the game very focused. We are happy with how we played as a total”.
VANGELIS MANTZARIS: «We did not look at the game as if it was a rehearsal for the Euroleague, it was a game that we needed to win. We were focused in the first half, however, not so much in the second half, when we received a lot of easy baskets. Our game philosophy starts with defense. After that, we got to run and we are becoming better with each passing game».