Task completed against Trikala

Despite many and important absences (Vasilis Spanoulis, Giorgos Printezis, Vangelis Mantzaris and Kim Tillie were out), Olympiacos comfortably won Trikala at the SEF 85-61.

Although the 'reds' were completely dominating rebounding -and having been leading 22-17 at 10' - , were not able to dictate the tempo. The bad shooting percentage from the perimeter (only 1/11 threes in the first quarter), combined to gaps in the defense, allowed Trikala not only to stay close to the score, but also take a 31-29 lead. Brian Roberts tied the game 31-31 with a lay up, which was the score that sealed the second quarter.

In the second half, Giannis Sfairopoulos - who had shuffled the deck really early into the game, throwing Toliopoulos and Arsenopoulos on the floor about a minute before the end of the first quarter - saw his players impressively stepping up defense wise. At the same time, relying on the offensive triplet of Papanikolaou - Agravanis - Stelnieks, Olympiacos dictated the rhythm and upped the margin to +16 (59-43 at 31'). The rest of the players slowly entered the offensive equation as well (+38, 84-46 being the largest margin) giving to the eventual victory a triumphant character (68-51).   

The quarters: 22-17, 31-31, 57-43, 86-51.
 
Οlympiacos (Sfairopoulos): Αgravanis 20(1 3p., 9 reb., 4 as.), Μilutinov 3 (3reb.), Papanikolaou 9(1 3p., 6 reb., 2 as., 1st., 1 bl.), Roberts 6(2 as.), Τhompson 2, ΜcLean 6(8 reb.), Toliopoulos 8(2 3p., 6 as.), Papapetrou 13(4 reb.), Strelnieks 13(1 3p., 5 as.), Arsenopoulos 2, Bogris 4(4 reb.).

Τrikala (Mexas): Jones 16(2), Lountzis 1, Hale 11, Facey, Murray 4, Ross, Chatzinikolas, Tejic 8, Skouloudis, Tataris, Vasileiadis 11(3), Kalogiannidis.

"We played the basketball we should be playing in the second half"

Giannis Sfairopoulos attributed the fact that his team was unable to control the tempo in the first twenty minutes to lack of concentration: "It is obvious that I cannot be happy with my team's performance throughout the game. We did not have concentration and were making easy mistakes especially in offense. We were attacking hastily, did not have patience and a clear head. We were stuck in offence. I can't say we weren't good in defense, we received 31 points in the first half, but we could have been better. We played as we should have done in the second half, focused above all else. We built on that and won. We are keeping the positive elements of the second half and we need to improve on the negative one that is concentration. We missed open shots that we were given due to its lack". Closing, he commented on the absence of the team's 6th players in yet another game for the Greek League: "It's very but to see the gym empty. Empty stadiums are bad for the sport and for all those playing".    

Αgravanis: "I'm always ready"

Dimitris Agravanis, who was the MVP of the 3rd day of the STOIXIMAN.GR Basket League after his impressive performance, said: "I'm always ready to help and I show that on the floor. As for adding a player, the team will decide what's best for it, given the fact that we have a long way to go both in Greece and especially in Europe. We got the 35 points difference in the second half, which shows that we were playing really bad in the first half. We came back angry, played good basketball, some very good defensive plays, attacked properly and got a comfortable victory".

Talking about what comes next, he said that Olympiacos is going to be much better… "We haven't shown a lot because we are missing some guys. We are missing Vasilis (Spanoulis), Vangelis (Mantzaris) and Giorgos (Printezis). When we are going to be all together the outlook is going to be much better, because we are going to be all together as a team. We will work at practice and you will see that we are going to be much better when we play".