Olympiacos takes it out on Apollon

Olympiacos beat Apollon Patras 83-55 in a game for the sixth day of the Stoiximan.gr Basket League. Kostas Papanikolaou was the MVP for the reds.

The Greek champions had a good start in the game with Lojeski and Papapetrou offering solutions with scoring to make the score 20-14 at the first quarter. In the second one, Papanikolaou playing terrific defense provided solutions on both ends of the floor, the tempo opened up, and the same went for the difference (half time at 49-31). The Piraeus team defense was great in the first 8 minutes of the third quarter. Olympiacos kept the guests under ten points during that time and the margin was up to +22 (62-40) at 28'. The difference was maintained at above 20 points throughout the last quarter. In the first seven minutes of the last quarter, Olympiacos only received four points and the score 74-49 (25 points difference) at 37'.

THE POINTS
The quarters: 20-14, 49-31, 66-45, 83-55.
Οlympiacos (Sfairopoulos): Birch 6, Spanoulis 5 (3as), Printezis 2, Mantzaris 9 (3), Lojeski 12 (8reb), Young 5 (4reb), Papapetrou 13 (3reb, 4as), Agravanis, Milutinov 2, Papanikolaou 12 (5reb), Hackett 4, Athinaiou 13 (2).
Αpollon Patras (Μexas): Cobbins 7, Hickey, Slaftsakis 5, Tsiaras 14 (4), Kalinosky 7, Russel 12, Mastrogiannopoulos, Bavcic 3 (1), Kouzeloglou 7 (1).

THE QUOTES
GIANNIS SFAIROPOULOS: "It was a serious game on our part, against a quite good team. They were missing some players but they definitely have capable scorers, we witnessed that both against PAOK and against Rethymno. What we wanted was to react after the game in Istanbul. We were serious, we played good defense, and without any disrespect to Apollon, it was our most serious game up to now against 2nd gear teams. We showed a good face on both ends of the floor, we moved the ball. We now focus on our Euroleague game. As for Green, he has a 48 hour leave, but let me explain this. Olympiacos is above everyone else. I'll be gone, the players shall be gone, but Olympiacos will always be here. The team is called Olympiacos and we all need to be under its roof. Everyone needs to work with a team spirit, we need everyone, but everyone needs to understand their roles and when they do then we are going to be on the right path."

KOSTAS MEXAS: "We have had a hard game to play, which was going to become even harder following the game Olympiacos played against Galata. I don't know what the story is with Green, but this made of the Olympiacos players to come and play even more seriously. This has nothing to do with us though. We did not play well, what comes next is very tough, some of the guys need to understand the situation and see what they can do from now on. They have to try for greater performance stability. I think that it is a mentality problem. We still curry the marks of the losses against PAOK and Prometheus, we need to overcome that and show a different face come Saturnday. Congratulations to Olympiacos, wish them all well in both Europe and Greece."

KOSTAS PAPANIKOLAOU: "We definitely showed a very bad image against Galata, we lost a game we shouldn't have, without this meaning that Galata is not a good team. We wanted to bring our reaction on the floor and now with a rather difficult week ahead with quite hard games, we need to do the same. We need to work even harder at practices. We need to start from our defense, we score a lot of points, but we receive a lot as well. We cannot always score 90 or 95. We need to focus on our defense even more because that's where our game begins".  

KΗEM BIRCH: "We wanted to be serious in our game, we moved the ball well, played proper defense, we played the game well, with concentration and got the result we wanted".