bwin TOURNAMENT AGAINST COVID-19: Olympiacos - Monaco 98-93
Olympiacos beat Monaco 98-93 and won first place of the «bwin TOURNAMENT AGAINST COVID-19».
The guests made a strong beginning and taking advantage of the continuous and unforced turnovers our team was making succeeded in building an 11p. margin (7-18). Olympiacos pressed in the defense, struck from the three point line and closed in to two points (30-32), however, the French managed to consistently maintain their lead up until 19’ (46-49). With a three by Walkup and a bucket and one by Jean-Charles the ‘reds’ got ahead 51-49 and closed the first half at +4 (55-51).
The Bartzokas’ players were leading by 5 (66-61), but weren’t able to set the tempo at the time. The French attacked the post (taking advantage of the fact that Fall and Martin were ridden with fouls early in the game) and got ahead in the score (72-75). The game remained a derby to the end (91-88 at 39’), with Sasha Vezenkov and Livio Jean-Charles making the difference and giving the win to our team.
The quarters: 18-25, 55-51, 72-75, 98-93.
The Legendary David Rivers, together with the General Director of Olympiacos BC Mr. Nikos Lepeniotis, presented the Champion U18 team of Olympiacos as well as the U16 one who won third place in the Greek Championship with awards.
The civic actions during the game
The Olympiacos’ forward, Giorgos Printezis, together with Mr. Konstantinos Efraimidis, CSR Manager of bwin, our team’s Mega Sponsor, handed Mr. Panagiotis Giannopoulos, Deputy Manager of the KAT General Hospital of Athens, with a voucher for sanitary and ppe materials to address Hospital needs.
The General Director of Olympiacos BC, Mr. Nikos Lepeniotis and Mr. Theodoros Tzavidopoulos, Sponsoring Manager of bwin, our team’s Mega Sponsor, handed Mr. Athanassios Filias, Curator of the A’ Pediatric Clinic of the “Karamandaneo” General Children’s Hospital of Patras “, sanitary and technological equipment to address hospital needs.
"It was the ideal test"
The coach of Olympiacos, Giorgos Bartzokas commented: “It was a terrific game both in terms of score evolvement as well as how it played out. It was a Euroleague game that was played with contact and physicality. I think that both teams were very good in offense, because Monaco also played as a team. Their points guard played an amazing game. Also, Montejunas can be a playmaker in the post. However, we also moved the ball well, facilitated plays, played without selfishness and we once again scored close to 100 points, against a team that played hard and forced us to a lot of turnovers in the first quarter. Either we lost, or now that we won, I would definitely say it has been the ideal test for us”.
On his part, Sasha Vezenkov stressed: “It was definitely a more demanding game than the previous ones. And of course the 93 points we received should alarm us, especially in the first three quarters. Towards the end we got to tighten our defense and got the win. As for the offense, we dished 23 assists, played as a group, especially in the second quarter, but it’s only certain there is still room for improvement”.
THE PRESS CONFERENCE FOR THE GAME