An out of space performance!
Olympiacos dismantled Baskonia 92-62 and has a 13-5 record following 18 games for the Euroleague. Spanoulis, Printezis and Papanikolaou were the top scorers for the reds with 12 each.
Olympiacos played impressive in the first quarter attacking the basket, but the Basques found some opportunities to play their game. This was the only time the team of Sito Alonso succeeded doing something good with their offense. Because, from the second quarter on, the defensive grips of the Greek Champions were such that the Basques were not even able to take a shot at times. Through defense, Olympiacos found offensive rhythm as well and the half time finished 50-28 for the 'reds'.
Nothing changed in the second half. Olympiacos was even better. The 'reds' kept going full throttle throughout the game, offered their fans a great show, with the third quarter closing at 76-43. In the last quarter, the guests took the difference under 20 points at its beginning, but following a time out Giannis Sfairopoulos called, the outlook was even better for Olympiacos that eventually demolished Baskonia 92-62.
THE POINTS
The quarters: 24-17, 50-28, 76-43, 92-62
Οlympiacos (Sfairopoulos): Green 11, Birch 9 (7reb.), Young 7, Papapetrou 4, Spanoulis 12 (2 3p., 7 as.), Waters 2 (5as.), Agravanis 2, Milutinov 3, Printezis 12 (7reb.), Papanikolaou 12 (2), Mantzaris 10 (2), Lojeski 8 (1).
Baskonia (Αλόνσο): Larkin 12, Bargnani 2, Voigtmann 3, Hanga 11, Sedekerskis 3, Beuabois 9 (1), Blazic 2, Diop, Tillie 7 (1), Budinger 8, Luz 5.
THE QUOTES
GIANNIS SFAIROPOULOS: "We wish to thank the fans for celebrating the team. I have said that players deserve the cheer when victorious. The fans have an infallible criterion. Tonight they saw a high gear team that beat a very worthy opponent. Fans cannot understand what happens and circumstances change when we play for Greek competitions. The whole of Greece understands what happens with the Greek League. Congratulations to the fans for the support. We'll do whatever possible to keep playing like that. I want to congratulate my players for an excellent game played. It was a very important and crucial game for us. They put in a great effort and performed the best they could against a very good team. It was very important that we put pressure on them from the beginning with our good defense and controlling the rhythm. We generally controlled the game through defense and kept Baskonia at very low scoring, at 62 points. This was the key to the victory, because when you play good defense, you have good movement in the offense as well. Numbers show tonight how good an offensive game we played. All the players got to score, we had five players with double digits and played one of our best games on both ends of the floor. We wish to thank our fans for helping us with such a huge presence. All the games are very important from now on and we need them by our side till the end. We repaid them for that support with our performance".
SITO ALONSO: "Congratulations to Olympiacos. I don't have anything to say about my team. We were horrible. Very bad from the beginning. Each one has to some self-critic. If we believe that offense can win us such a quality team, with such history and such a home court, then we are mistaken. I cannot come to terms with how we performed and we need to fix that asap. Olympiacos was better in all aspects of the game and played with more energy. What happened tonight must never happen again".
PATRIC YOUNG: "If we leave out some easy points that we allowed in the beginning following offensive boards, we played a very complete game on both ends. We brought out a lot of energy and scored a lot of points in the transition. Of course the defeat to Panathinaikos was very disappointing, but it's human nature to want to react and we did that. We want to continue with the same intensity and we have one week in front of us with two difficult games against Armani Milano and Bamberg".
VANGELIS MANTZARIS: "It is obvious that the defeat to Panathinikos made us more determined and we had to react. We lost one goal and we have two bigger ones in front of us, where we are in a very good place. Where we stand right now, the immediate goal is the home court advantage. But we are not looking very far, only as far as the next game. We played with a lot of energy in our defense from the beginning. We kept Baskonia maybe to its worst offensive production in the season and succeeded in taking Larkin out of rhythm, since he's the player that sets the rhythm for them. That's why we are very satisfied by our performance".