"Bent" in OAKA
With bad luck adding to the burden of the game (Papapetrou and Agravanis were not included in the line up, Printezis was unable to continue in the second half due to lower back problems, while Milutinov sprained his foot and played very little in the second half), Olympiacos lost to AEK at OAKA 62-66 for the 8th day of the STOIXIMAN.GR Basket League.
Bad defense, poor offensive choices and missed rebounds allowed AEK to impose the tempo from the beginning (7-2 at 3') and build a 12 p. margin (22-10 at 9'). Giannis Sfairopoulos "shuffled" the deck, Janis Strelnieks offered substantial solutions and with a partial 11-3 our team had a two point game (25-23 at 13').
The hosts were able to maintain the lead with shots from the perimeter; however, Jamel McLean and Giorgos Printezis dominated the post and helped Olympiacos take the lead for the first time in the game (33-34 at 17'). Nevertheless, he wasn't able to keep leading…
The end of the first half found AEK leading 39-37, while the hosts widened the margin to 6 points in the beginning of the 3rd quarter (45-39 at 22'). The 'reds' tried to regain the lead leaning on McLean and Papanikolaou, however, too many missed free throws did not allow so (50-51 at 30').
Playing good defense, our team contained AEK and got to lead 56-53 at 34'. However, whatever was build during these four minutes, was brought down in the next couple ones, receiving a partial 8-0 that sent AEK to +5 (61-56 at 36'). Two back to back threes by Mantzaris and Spanoulis gave our team the lead (62-61 at 38'), however, continuous turnovers, bad choices in the offense and a lot of missed threes, allowed AEK to run a partial 5-0 that 'sealed' the victory.
The quarters: 22-12, 39-37, 51-50, 66-62
ΑΕΚ (Sakota): James 8 , Green 12, Harris 15, Larentzakis 6(1) , Μavroeidis 9, Xanthopoulos, Sakota 10(2), Barlow 4 , Kavvadas 2, Elonu.
ΟLYMPIACOS (Sfairopoulos): Spanoulis 6 (2 3p., 4as.), Μilutinov, Printezis 7(1), Papanikolaou 10 (8reb., 2 st.), Roberts, ΜcLean 16 (12reb., 1as., 2st.), Strelnieks 9(1), Mantzaris 8 (2 3p. 4as.), Bogris, Wiltjer 2 , Τhompson 4.
"Our thinking wasn't clear"
Our team's coach, Giannis Sfairopoulos, stated: "We did not play a good game. We weren't ready either physically or mentally at the beginning. We began very sluggish, received many easy points due to bad defensive cooperation and luck of concentration. However, the same applied to our offense as well, since we were not moving the ball and were not thinking straight so as to execute more effectively. AEK got to lead by two digits, I was forced to call two time outs in the first quarter to cut back on their tempo and give us a chance to recover. This was true in the second quarter, we improved our defense, AEK had a greater difficulty in scoring and we closed in. The second half was a battle. I think that at the end it was a derby that was decided by details. We did not have a clear head to make the right choices in the offense during the last three minutes, but before we got there we had good movement with the ball, many open shots, we missed a lot of open threes and when we had to step up, we did not make our shots and we had a three minute game. During that time and specifically in the last couple of minutes, we did not make good choices at all on either end of the floor, AEK made some easy buckets, got a small lead and won the game. Congratulations to AEK for the victory. We move on. I have to say that we may be missing a lot of players, but I always ask from those available to fight and play to the end. We may have had a game on Friday and finished very late after overtime and then we had to play on Sunday. But I still asked them to be ready. However, we cannot but admit that from the four players we have for the '4' position, only Wiltjer is healthy and ready. Printezis could not continue after the first half, Agravanis and Papapetrou are injured. That's why we played for a long time with Papanikolaou at the '4' position. I'm not trying to find excuses. However, these were the facts that we had to face. I think we did, but playing this way we had less choices into a fresher line up towards the end so as to be more effective ".
Asked on where he attributes the lack of clear thinking, he answered: "When you have players that play different positions than their own, when you play with players that get to play too many minutes in the game and cannot keep a very clear head, it's only logical to make some mistakes on both ends of the floor. That's how we received easy points that cost us the victory ".
Finally, on who is going to be traveling to Germany :"I don't know if Printezis and Milutinov are going to be able to play against Bamberg. I also don't know about Agravanis and Papapetrou… We move day by day. Agravanis will probably not be ready. Papapetrou is running a race to make it ".
Jamel McLean pointed out: "My performance is absolutely of no importance. We need to rest to focus ahead. It's a game that's over and we don't need to say something. We move on ".