An easy evening
Olympiacos comfortably bested Lavrio DHI 80-64 on the road for the 7th day of the Stoiximan.gr Basket League and continues to be at the top rank for the Greek League.
The game had an excellent start for the Greek Champions. Especially in the defense, the players of Giannis Sfairopoulos played a great game and hence the first quarter ended with the Piraeus team leading by nine (10-19).
In the second quarter, Matt Lojeski opened up the difference with continuous threes. However, the focus on the defensive part of the game was not as intense which allowed the hosts to score some easy points with Kok and half time ending 29-43.
Matt Lojeski continued scoring the third quarter, as well as Papapetrou, Printezis and Papanikolaou, while Eric Green found the way to the basket quite a few times and the margin went up to 20 points (46-66) allowing Giannis Sfairopoulos to give minutes to all this players.
Nevertheless, Olympiacos did not make a good start in the fourth quarter. The hosts ran a partial 14-1 and closed in 60-67, but following a time - out called by Giannis Sfairopoulos, his players reacted and with a partial 1-10 of their own the practiclly "sealed" the victory, with a final score of 64-80.
THE POINTS
The quarters: 10-19, 29-43, 46-66, 64-80
Lavrio DHI (Serelis): Hamilton 8, Stefanidis 2, Athanasoulas 2, Kok 6, Bolds 9, Punter 18 (2), Τsiros 3 (1), Perrakis 7 (1), Giannakopoulos 9 (1), Kaklamanakis, Αnagnostakis.
Οlympiacos (Sfairopoulos): Birch 5, Spanoulis 5, Printezis 11 (1), Papanikolaou 9 (1), Mantzaris 8 (2), Green 7 (1), Young 5, Papapetrou 9 (2), Milutinov 3, Hackett 7, Lojeski 11 (3), Athinaiou.
THE QUOTES
CHRISTOS SERELIS: "Good evening everyone, we definitely had not counted on getting two points tonight, but we had wanted to test where we are in view of what comes next. Olympiacos controlled the game for its most part. We have had a good period in the last quarter taking advantage of what Olympiacos was giving us. We closed in, we forced them to react and I think that we proved we continue same as last season, that is, we don't give up. I'm glad we haven't lost that. And I'm only talking about it considering that we lost a game against Patra because we never showed up for a whole half time against them. We are now getting ready for the game in Amaliada, we will try to win there for the first time on the road. Good luck to the coach and to Olympiacos".
GIANNIS SFAIROPOULOS: "It was a game we played being quite serious about it. We started out very well defense wise, we only received ten points in the first quarter. We imposed our rhythm from the beginning, we took the margin to two digits, Lavrio found rhythm in the last quarter, we loosened up our defense, but we controlled the game yet again following the time out. And we won the game. Good luck to Lavrio and its coach".
"I'm happy for the way we played tonight, being so serious about the game. Following two very tough Euroleague games, it was important to be as focused as that. Good luck to Lavrio, we are now focusing on our game against Maccabi Tel Aviv".
IOANNIS PAPAPETROU: "We loosened up a bit to the end and we don't want that. It's not only talking about it, but doing it as well. We could have made the game easier if we had maintained our concentration for 40 minutes and not one less".