Easy pass through Rhodes

Olympiacos had an easy afternoon in Rhodes, defeating Kolossos 88-73 in the 9th round of Basket League.

Olympiacos started serious and concentrated in the game against Kolossos in Rhodes. The “red and whites” forced their pace from early on, with pressure on defense and nice partnerships on offense (0-7, 2’). Tyler Dorsey led the team in scoring initially with 5 quick points, before Alec Peters took the reins with 8 consecutive points (4-17, 6’). The home team could not find solutions offensively against Olympiacos’s defense and were unable in disrupting our offensive flow (4-22, 8’). With 1:50 to go in the first quarter, Stefanos Spartalis checked in for Nikola Milutinov, in lieu of other options at the “5”. The quarter ended 8-24. The game did not look differently come the second quarter, with Olympiacos -slotting Kostas Papanikolaou at the “4” amidst the team’s absences- dominating the opponent and putting on a show for the people in attendance. A three-pointer from Giannoulis Larentzakis pushed the lead to +22 (8-30, 13’), while a nice two-man game between himself and the captain pushed it to +26 (9-35, 15’). Colossus took advantage of some misses, temporarily decreasing their deficit below 20 points (25-44, 41”), with the half coming to a close at 25-46.

In the third quarter, our team continued to completely control the game -with coach Bartzokas going deeper in his rotation- with the lead around 20 points and Alex Peters and Tyler Dorsey leading the way. The American forward made a three-pointer from afar, just as the shot clock ended, to make it 31-57 (24’), exciting the crowd. In the last three minutes of the quarter, Makis Giatras’s team went on a 9-0 run, on three consecutive three-pointers (45-65, 27’), without becoming competitive. The quarter ended at 51-70. In the last quarter, with the game effectively decided, defenses got looser and the pace of the game heightened, with Olympiacos leading by more than 20 points at various instances, despite the home team’s effort to cut the deficit from the perimeter. Nikola Milutinov dunked the ball after a nice display of sharing the ball (53-76, 33’). The game looked the same (61-83, 38’), with the home team taking advantage of the looseness in the last 2 minutes of the game to cut the deficit to under 20 (73-88).

*Sasha Vezenkov, who has been ill since the road game against Monaco, did not play.

Quarters: 8-24, 25-46, 51-70, 73-88