Only Olympiacos!
Olympiacos beat Darusafaka 81-73 for the 25th day of the Euroleague Regular season, has 'embraced' home court advantage and has secured the Euroleague play-offs participation for the 11th time in the last 12 years. An incredible feat.
The game began with offense having a starring role for both teams. So, the 'reds' were leading 25-18 at the end of the first quarter. In the second one, the Greek champions playing incredible defense for five minutes, sent the margin to two digit levels and half time was 48-33.
In the third quarter, the Piraeus players were not shooting well, made some bad offensive decisions, but through their stellar defense maintained a two digit margin (69-58). Darusafaka seemed ready to overturn the situation in the fourth quarter, but it was the champions' heart that spoke and the game was over 81-73 for the reds.
THE POINTS
The quarters: 25-18, 48-33, 69-58, 81-73
Οlympiacos (Sfairopoulos): Green 11 (1), Birch 13 (8reb.), Young 4, Papapetrou, Spanoulis 8 (8as.), Waters 7 (1), Milutinov 8, Printezis 8, Papanikolaou 7, Mantzaris 3 (1), Lojeski 12 (1).
Darusafaka (Blatt): Wilbekin 6 (0/6 3p.), Batuk, Wanamaker 23, Clyburn 20 (1), Ulubay, Moerman 5 (1), Aldemir, Savas 2, Anderson 12, Zizic 5, Harangody.
THE QUOTES
ERICK GREEN: "It's a big victory, we made the first step and we are in the play-offs. The second step is to secure home court advantage. We need to see what will happen, we have to continue this way. For sure, we relaxed at the end, we stepped down and this is a mistake. We shouldn't be allowing that. We have tough games ahead. But if we keep focusing at one game at a time, anything can happen. We need to continue working an playing together for all four quarters of a game to become a better team".
DAVID BLATT: "It's important for us to have the home court advantage. We are very focused on that goal. Congratulations to Olympiacos. It was one of these games that you do a lot of things to remain competitive, but you lack key elements. We made a very bad first half, but we came back in the second part and challenged victory. However, you cannot beat a team like Olympiacos with 2/20 threes. We made fewer mistakes, got the boards, but did not make the shots. Olympiacos is a good team and you need to shoot well to beat them. Olympiacos' defense was very good in the first half, but we took a lot of open shots in the second one that we missed…. I chose to leave, it was the right moment, I wasn't let go. It's never a good idea to step into the same water for a second time. Nevertheless, what we accomplished in Russia will be with me for the rest of my career".