First place in the Cretan tournament!

Olympiacos beat Unics Kazan 70-65, remains undefeated during pre-season games and won first place in the 3rd International Basketball Tournament Crete.

Defensive gaps, poor offensive choices and missed free throws allowed the Russians to take a small lead in the beginning (8-4 at 3' and 14-11 at 7'). However, Blatt's players decided to put pressure in the defense later on, found the target from the perimeter with Vassilis Spanoulis and Janis Timma and "built" a +10 margin (29-19 at 14').

Unics closed at 32-38 with a three by Sheleketo at the end of the first half, however, Olympiacos playing good defense, running the floor and having a pluralistic offense, took the difference score to +14 (57-43 at 30'). The Russian team did not abandon the fight nevertheless… Running an 8-0 streak in the first two minutes of the fourth quarter, closed in at 6p. (51-57), while then taking advantage of the missed shots and the turnovers our team made, got to "strike" under the basket and had a two point game (61-63, at 36'). At that crucial point, captain Vassilis Spanoulis took over and led the team to winning the game.

"All's well that ends well"

Olympiacos coach, David Blatt, stated: "In every game you are going to have both good and not so good elements. We wanted to play better defense and we did that. It was clear. Unfortunately, we did not protect the ball and made 20 turnovers. When you make so many turnovers, you cannot score as much as we wanted to. Unics is a tough opponent. They play in a certain way and from the moment we turned the ball over so many times we couldn't be playing the way we wanted to. However, just like Shakespeare said, all's well that ends well… So since the game ended well for us, all is well".

Janis Timma commented: "First of all, I'm very happy we played better in this game. This started from our defense and that's always the case. Defense gives you confidence to play offense. I will personally try to help the most I can and be productive on an off court".
*Vassilis Spanoulis suffered a dislocated left pinkie which was re-aligned. He will be medically assessed tomorrow (24/09).

The quarters: 16-18, 32-38, 43-57, 65-70.