A win against Panionios, the focus is now on Aris
Olympiacos bested Panionios 76-66 for the last game of the Regular season and is now focusing on the first round of the play-offs, that will be played against Aris with a home court advantage for the ‘reds’
The game started with an impressive offensive performance by our team. Dunston finished many plays, Spanoulis was also executing apart from creating and the first quarter ended 27-17 for ‘Thrylos’. However, during the second quarter, poor shooting and lack of concentration in certain situations in defense allowed Panionios to come close to the score at the end of half-time (42-38).
Collins, Lojeski and Sloukas offered offensive solutions to the team of Giorgos Bartzokas during the third quarter, which finished 63-55 for the Piraeus team. Giorgos Bratzokas tried different rotations during the last quarter in view of the first play-offs round against Aris and ‘Thrylos’ got a 76-66 victory.
Τhe quarters: 27-18, 42-38, 63-55, 76-66.
Olympiacos (Bartzokas): Petway 4, Dunston 12, Spanoulis 9, Perperoglou 2, Sloukas 11 (2), Collins 9 (1), Simmons 4, Lojeski 12 (2), Printezis 7, Mantzaris, Kavvadas 6, Katsivelis.
Panionios (Sferopoulos): McCollum 18 (2), Duvnjak 6 (1), Carter 4, Milbourne 7 (1), Athanassoulas, Batis 6 (2), Skordilis, Langford 13, Michel 3, Symtsak 2, Kyritsis 2, Saloustros 5 (1).
GIORGOS BARTZOKAS: “Congratulations to the coach and to Panionios for succeeding their goals for the Regular season. We have had the chance to play against a strong opponent upon completing our regular season games, an opponent we may be facing again later on. What we had wanted was to give minutes and keep our level of performance at high standards, we did the first part, although we did not succeed the second task for all of the duration of the game, we have had ups and downs depending on the quintets we were using, but we had twice as many assists and we dominated the boards, elements that actually determine the winners of the games, while we also balanced our turnovers. What we need to do is to prepare for what comes next”.
About the play-offs, the Greek coach said that “Actually, the teams that challenge titles are just getting ready. I feel that we are in a good shape, we practice at a high level and I hope we remain healthy and together. I wish Shermadini is with us in 4-5 days, ready to work towards achieving our goals. All the best to Panionios for the play-offs. We were going to play either against KAOD or against Aris. I feel that at this level all teams are about the same. They all have weak and strong spots. Aris is a historical team and playing in Palais des Sports in never easy, from that point on our goal is to do the best we can and finish the series early on, acknowledging that they are a team that can cause you problems, especially with the way they defend. They have a blend of experienced and talented players. We respect Aris and its history. On our part, we are going to do what it takes to qualify”.
BRENT PETWAY: “We knew it was going to be a tough game against Panionios, the third team of the Leaue. They have a good roster with experienced and young players, good Americans and good Greek players. We had wanted to use this game as a preparation for the play-offs and this was a good opportunity against a tough team. The series against Aris is going to be a tough one; they are a team with a lot of veterans, but also quite a few good young players. We start preparing for them tomorrow”.
GIANNIS SFEROPOULOS: “Before starting talking about the game, I would like to congratulate Olympiacos and the coach for their European course. I think that both teams used this game in preparation of the tough play-offs ahead of us. We have had good and bad periods into the game. We have had a lot of problems defense wise in the first quarter, we allowed some easy points for Olympiacos in the post. Due to improving our defense in the second quarter, we managed to find rhythm in offense. We never stopped fighting, Olympiacos was building on the difference whenever they wanted to thanks to their quality, but we never gave up. What comes next is now important, it’s certainly big that we won the third ranking spot with a margin from the fourth team, but what counts is the end and not the regular season. We are now focusing on KAOD and we start preparing tomorrow”.
VASSILIS SYMTSAK: “We knew it was going to be a tough game for us. We weren’t good in defense in the first quarter. We improved our pick n’ roll defense in the second quarter and managed to stay in touch with the score. Olympiacos deserved to win. This game will help us in view of the play-offs. We now need to be mentally and physically ready for the games against KAOD”.