Greek Cup F8: Olympiacos - Aris 82-51

Olympiacos bested Aris 82-51 and comfortably secured his ticket to the Greek Cup semis, where he will be facing the winner of the Panathinaikos – Kolossos Rhodes game.

The first four minutes of the game was a ‘scouting’ one for our team (4-4). However, through some excellent defense (which became obvious from the fact that up to 11’ Aris was not able to score another point), the ‘red & whites’ found rhythm in offence as well and ran a partial 20-0 (24-4 at 11’). Aris pushed back, took advantage of the turnovers and bad ball movement by Olympiacos and closed in to 11p. (31-20 at 17’). But that was as far as they could go… Bartzokas’ players maintained control and closed the first half at +15 (39-24).

With Sasha Vezenkov and Moustapha Fall running point, the ‘red & whites’ once again got to lead with 20 (48-28 at 24’), however, in less than two minutes, Aris replied with a 7-0 streak and forced Giorgos Bartzokas into calling a time-out (48-35 at 26’). Upon returning on the floor, his players did exactly what he had asked of them… They effectively pushed in defense, moved the ball efficiently, went to correct choices when attacking and increased the distance to 23p. (60-37 at 30’). Thinking about tomorrow’s (18/02, 18:15 CET) semifinal, Giorgos Bartzokas tried to preserve stamina and allocated minutes to everyone. However, the ‘red & whites’ tempo was not impacted by that. They continued putting pressure in defense, got to strike from long range and increased the difference even more, to 31p. (82-51 at 39’).

The quarters: 22-4, 39-24, 60-37, 82-51.