Barca ‘brought down’ Olympiacos
Despite putting up enormous effort, Olympiacos was not able to secure their second Euroleague win. The team lost in a packed Peace and Friendship Stadium to Barcelona 77-68, in a game they were missing without Nigel Williams-Goss, Luke Sikma and Shaquielle McKissic.
The ‘red & whites’ appeared to be disorganized at the beginning of the game, a fact that the Spanish team took advantage of, relying on good long range percentages, which allowed them to build a +12 difference (11-23 at 9’). At that point though, Olympiacos appeared to be waking up. They put pressure in defense, ran the fast break and closed in to 6p. (16-23). Barcelona however, continued ‘bombarding’ our team’s basket from the three point line and sent the difference skyrocketing to 15p. (20-35) at 14’. Still, Bartzokas’ players got to react. They toughened their defense, found solutions in the offense with Nikola Milutinov and Ignas Brzdeikis and closed in to 6p. (34-40 at 20’).
With Isaiah Canaan leading the offense, Olympiacos got ahead 44-42. However, the American guard’s 4th foul forced Giorgos Bartzokas to bench him, and that combined with the great percentages Laprovitola and Jokubaitis were having from the perimeter, gave Barcelona the lead once again (44-50 at 25’). The ‘red & whites’ returned to game this time also… Leaning heavy on their defense, they moved the ball correctly and with Alec Peters and Thomas Walkup spearheading the offense, they turned the game around (66-59 at 36’). But they collapsed afterwards… They showed no patience whatsoever when attacking the basket, made bad decisions, when at the same time, Barcelona continued shooting with excellent percentages from the three point line and ran a partial 15-0 (66-73) that practically decided the winner.
The quarters: 16-23, 34-40, 54-56, 68-77.
