An easy evening at Trikala
Olympiacos beat Trikala on the road 81-60 and has 9 wins in 9 games for the STOIXIMAN.GR Basket League. Giannis Athinaiou was the top scorer for our team.
The game started with our team trying to find rhythm mainly in the offense. When the ‘reds’ made a couple of shots and played a few good defensive plays, the score went from 12-10 to 14-18 and then the margin was always getting broader. Birch and Athinaiou offered offensive boost with their entrance to the gym and with a partial 2-16 Olympiacos got a two digit difference while half time closed at 29-48.
In the third quarter, the Greek Champs continued in the same tempo. Young came in strong on both ends of the floor and the third quarter was 44-67. In the last quarter, the Piraeus team players maintained the margin above 20 points and comfortably made the final score 60-81.
THE POINTS
The quarters: 14-18, 29-48, 44-67, 60-81.
Trikala (Kastritis): Manolopoulos 3, Caffey 12 (2), Lypovyy 4, Biruta 12 (2), Tsangkarakis 2, Atic 5 (1), Poulianitis 5 (1), Barlow 8 (1), Kalles 2, Hotton 7, Varytimiadis.
Οlympiacos (Sfairopoulos): Green 9 (3reb), Birch 4 (6reb), Young 9 (4reb), Papapetrou 8 (7reb), Spanoulis 6 (1 3p, 5as), Μilutinov 2, Printezis 4 (7reb), Papanikolaou 10 (2 3p, 5reb), Hackett 2, Lojeksi 4, Αthinaiou 23 (2 3p, 2reb, 4as).
THE QUOTES
GIANNIS SFAIROPOULOS: “An important victory for us, we played good basketball, just like we wanted to play. Trikala are very productive playing at home, we were focused in our defense, whenever Trikala won a game, they shot 44% with threes, we lowered that percentage, built quite a good difference and maintained it to the end. We got a victory having the opportunity to rest some players. We have had an unexpected problem with Mantzaris who felt a muscle pull during warm up and we did not want to risk anything so we did not have him play. We also rested Spanoulis and Printezis and everyone that played were completely focused and followed our plan. I don’t easily talk about any particular player, but I need to talk about Giannis Athinaiou. He gave his best on both ends of the floor. I have said many times that everyone has to be ready at any given moment, I count on all my players and they all need to be ready and Giannis was completely ready tonight. I would like to thank Trikala for the hospitality and their good will towards our team yesterday and today”.
GIANNIS ATHINAIOU: “We were coming from a tough game in Turkey against Darusafaka. We came straight here, to play a good game, since Trikala play very fast at home. They play good and fast and we needed to match up this energy and not allow them play their game. I think we did that for the most part playing beautiful basketball at moments. We have also had some periods in the game when we did not play that well. But let’s not forget that the team has a lot of obligations. It’s important that we were serious and we go on focusing on a tough schedule ahead”.
*Vaggelis Mantzaris suffered a distension in the left leg adductor and will be examined upon the team returning to Piraeus.