23-1 with super Spanoulis and defense
Olympiacos won much easier than what the final 66-57 shows and reached a 23-1 record for the Greek League.
The Piraeus team began kind of numb and Panionios succeeded in leading 16-13 at the end of the first quarter. The ‘reds’, however, using defense as their main weapon very quickly overturned the situation and it was them who led 30-20 with Panionios closing in at 36-29 at the end of the first half.
Eventually though, Olympiacos took complete control of the game early into the third quarter, with its captain Vassilis Spanoulis, Pero Antic and Giorgi Shermadini doing an excellent job. And it was thus the difference reached 18 points (40-58) at the end of the third quarter.
In the last quarter the players of Giorgos Bartzokas slowed down and the final score was 57-66.
The quarters: 16-13, 29-36, 40-58, 57-66
Panionios (Sferopoulos): Bogris 10, Payne 12 (1), Motsenigos, Αthinaiou 6 (1), Keys 3, Milburn 7 (1), Athanassoulas 1, Batis 6 (1), Jankovic 8, Kavvadas, Agravanis, Booker 4.
Οlympiacos (Bartzokas): Hines 8, Law 6, Antic 7 (1), Spanoulis 14 (2), Perperoglou 8, Shermadini 10, Sloukas 2, Powell 2, Perkins 5 (1), Printezis, Papanikolaou 1, Katsivelis 3 (1).
GIORGOS BARTZOKAS: “It was a game in a tough time for us, since we were coming from the series against Anadolu Efes where we spent a lot of energy and we knew what kind of team Panionios is and what we were going to be up against with. Unfortunately, circumstance did not allow for either those who were at the gym or those who watched it from TV to enjoy it, since the fans were not allowed to attend and the heat was immense. I have no complaints either from Panionios or the hospitality. Printezis suffered a sprain before half-time, we wanted to give minutes so that Perkins would get to play and the minutes should be allocated well so as not to disrupt what we were to trying to experiment with. I hope Printezis has nothing serious”.
ΚYLE HINES: “We did a good job against a good team and it wasn’t an easy game coming from such a tough series against Anadolu Efes for the Euroleague play-offs. Now, we have to focus to the game we have ahead of us, the one against CSKA for the Final Four semi-finals. We don’t like to play in empty gyms, but we are accustomed to it since we have played quite a few games ourselves without our fans present”.
DIMITRIS KATSIVELIS: “It’s certain that the game against Anadolu Efes used up a lot of our energy, but we are professionals, we always have to be ready and we are now focusing on CSKA Moscow. We are going to study all the CSKA strong points as well as their weaknesses and we are going to try to prepare and be absolutely ready”.