Defeated, but nothing is lost...
Olympiacos lost to Zalgiris 80-60 for the third game of the playoffs, however, nothing is over yet. The ‘reds’ will be fighting on Thursday (26/04, 19.00 CET) for the victory that will give them home court back so that everything is decided on the 5th game at the SEF.
Playing good defense and led by Brian Roberts, Olympiacos exploited on the bad perimeter percentages by Zalgiris and got to lead by 6p. (7-13, at 5’). Zalgiris, nevertheless, put pressure on the whole court, passed the ball in the post and turned the game around. They closed the first quarter leading 21-19 and using the same recipe skyrocketed the margin to +17 (47-30, at 19’). A bucket and a foul by Nikola Milutinov and a three by Vangelis Mantzaris allowed the ‘reds’ to run a partial 6-0 and close in at 11p. (47-36) at the end of the first half.
In the second half, the hosts maintained control and increased the difference to 14p. (53-39, at 23;), however, Olympiacos showed to have a … pulse. They put pressure in the defense and with Vassilis Spanoulis leading the offense, they run a 7-0 streak (53-46, at 26’). At that point, it only took Paulius Jankunas two minutes to bring down everything that they had built on … He scored 9 points in a row and offered Zalgiris a +15 margin (62-47) plus a lot of confidence which allowed for the distance between the two team to grow (69-50, at 31’). The Sfairopoulos’ players had the will, but not the energy to overturn the situation (75-54, at 35’), which offered Zalgiris a comfortable victory. We remind that the injured Nikola Milutinov, Giorgos Printezis, Kostas Papanikolaou and Giorgos Bogiris played on their own volition.
The quarters: 21-19, 47-36, 67-50, 80-60
Ζalgiris (Jasikevicius): Davies 18, Pangos 12(2), Τoupane 10(2), Udrih 6, Jankunas 13, Salius, Μilaknis 1, Μisic 8, White 5, Kavaliauskas 7, Valinskas, Ulanovas.
Οlympiacos (Sfairopoulos): ΜcLean 6, Brown, Papapetrou 5, Spanoulis 14, Μilutinov 3, Strelnieks 3, Τillie 6 (1), Printezis 3, Papanikolaou 6, Μantzaris 3 (1), Roberts 11 (1), Bogris.
"We need to change our outlook"
Giannis Sfairopoulos, stated: “We did not play as we should. We weren’t strong and aggressive. We made a good start in the first quarter and got a small difference, but the offensive rebounds Zalgiris got kept them in the game and gave them the lead. We had a very bad second quarter that had on impact on how the game went on. We did not play as a team in the offense and did not protect our post. Zalgiris shot with 84% in twos before halftime. It was not possible for us to do have any luck in the game this way. We tried to react in the second half and we had a 7 point game at 26’. We missed some shots at that point and Jankunas made some middle range shots and it was very tough to come back after that ".