An important win on the road

Olympiacos, with Kem Birch and Vassilis Spanoulis playing a great game, beat Aris 70-63 for the 5th day of the Stoiximan.gr Basket League and continuous ranking first with a perfect record.

The Greek Champions did not begin the game well in the defense, allowed the hosts to find easy points at the beginning and hence get a small lead. However, in the second quarter, the outlook was different. Spanoulis did everything on the court, the same went down for Birch, Lojeski and Green who offered solutions in the offense and Olympiacos was leading 34-44 at half-time.

It was obvious from the third quarter that the Piraeus team had tightened its defense. Mantzaris and Agravanis played some great defense in the beginning of the third quarter, Papanikolaou made 3/3 behind the 6.75 arc at the same time and the margin was up to 15 points. The hosts run a 8-0 streak and closed in at seven while they had a two point game at the beginning of the last quarter. However, the 'reds' found the answer once again. With threes by Lojeski and Agravanis the difference went to +8 and Olympiacos never looked back again to reach the final 63-70.

THE POINTS
The quarters: 20-21, 34-44, 51-58, 63-70
ΑRIS (Priftis): Marble 9, Xanthopoulos 6(2), Tsairelis, Jenkins 3(1), Cummings 12, Zaras 7, Mourtos, Symtsak 3, Buckner 2, Jankovic 3(1), Dragisevic 18(8reb.).
ΟLYMPIACOS (Sfairopoulos): Green 7, Birch 10(2/2 1p., 4/4 2p., 12reb.), Young 8, Papapetrou, Spanoulis 13(11as.), Αgravanis 3(1), Printezis, Papanikolaou 9(3/3 3p.), Mantzaris 4(1), Hackett 4, Lojeski 12.

THE QUOTES
DIMITRIS PRIFTIS: "Congratulations to Olympiacos for the victory. They played better, they played quite strong and got a fair victory. We had a good defensive second half, which gave us the opportunity to believe that we could close in. The first half was very bad, we were better offensive wise, but we were really bad in defense. Either way, it stops here. We now have to focus on the game against Banvit. Unfortunately, we don't have time for emotions, the game against Banvit is very important for the Champions League. We can't be emotional; we have to immediately move on".

GIANNIS SFAIROPOULOS: "It's always important to win in this court. Aris is a very well prepared team, they know where to attack and on who. We had full control of the game except for the first five minutes in the first quarter. We started out well in the second half, but when the difference was up to 16 we thought the game was over, Aris made some long shots and got some easy points and had a 2 points game. But we also had some very good offensive choices, we improved our defense and got the victory. It's a good win and nothing more. Good luck to Aris and the coach".  
The Greek Champions coach was asked about how he managed to keep his players on edge after each Euroleague game to cope with a Greek League one which is obviously of a lesser level and he replied "I don't know if it's a lesser level, however lack of energy and focus is a major issue for our team. Players are professionals and they need to be ready at any time and we need to have them ready at any time. We need to be ready to play correctly, with energy, passion and team spirit at any point. There are no excuses, the schedule is a given, it will not change, so that's how we need to move on".

DANIEL HACKETT: "I think it was a good game for us tonight. We played in one of the toughest courts in Europe and we made it. We stayed focused, we followed the plan and made a rather good effort, we executed our defensive plan very well and managed to contain a very good offensive team at only 63 points".

KOSTAS PAPANIKOLAOU: "It is definitely a great home court, it's nice to play here. We had a hard time, however, we executed all we had planned. We followed our plan, we did everything our coach had asked us to do and we move on. Congratulations to Aris, its fans and the guys that played here".

SPYROS MOURTOS: "We did not have good offensive function in the second quarter. We lost some defensive rebounds in the end of the game and that cost us. We play against Banvit on Wednesday and we need to be 100% ready. We don't have more time to think about this game".