Unstoppable
Olympiacos edged Valencia 77-76 for the sixth round of the Euroleague Regular Season and has now a 6-0 record in the competition. Vassilis Spanoulis was the top scorer for Olympiacos with 15 points.
The 'reds' started well with Darden, Spanoulis and Dunston providing offensive solutions and the team of Giannis Sferopoulos was leading 26-21 at the end of the first quarter.
Olympiacos "built" a difference of 10 points into the second quarter, but continuous points by Ribas and Dubljevic allowed the guests to close in 45-40 at the end of the first quarter.
Olympiacos was not finding target and was nervous in the third quarter. The Spaniards took advantage of the situation and with a partial 9-20 took a 54-60 lead. But the players of Giannis Sferopoulos never abandoned the game. Olympiacos based its game on a very solid defense and reached a 77-76 victory.
The quarters: 26-21, 45-40, 54-60, 77-76.
Olympiacos (Sferopoulos): Petway 5 (4reb, 1as, 1bl), Hunter 7 (3reb, 3st, 1bl), Dunston 14 (6reb), Spanoulis 15 (2 3p, 2 reb, 7as), Sloukas 6 (4reb, 4as), Agravanis 8 (1 3p, 10reb), Mantzaris 2 (4reb, 3as, 1st), Kavvadas, Lafayette 9 (3 3p, 4as), Darden 11 (1 3p, 3reb, 1bl).
Valencia (Perasovic): Ribas 16 (1), Nedovic 6, Sato 5 (1), Lucic 16 (3), Dubljevic 16 (2), Vives 8 (1), Loncar 2, Aguilar, Harangody 2.
GIANNIS SFEROPOULOS: "It's a very important victory, because we have known that Valencia would be playing one of its last cards. I had said before the game that Valencia has a very good roster and its course doesn't do it justice. I congratulated my players, which came following a not so good performance. We showed character and had the mental reserves necessary when we were trailing. We are now focusing on the next game. It was a nervous game. When you play in your home court and you know you need to get the result, you have extra pressure. This pressure forces you into mistakes. We made mistakes and we need to address them. The important thing for me is that the player showed they had the mental strength necessary to go after the victory even when trailing. The break between the third and the fourth quarter was really important. Our best defensive quarter was the fourth one and that means a lot".
VELIMIR PERASOVIC: "I believe that tonight we played our best road game in the season. Especially when Olympiacos was leading by 10 and we did not give up. We played with focus and came back to the game. Lucic was very important for us for taking the pressure from the Olympiacos defense. I think that when we were leading by 10 the refs changed their criteria. Olympiacos was playing with many contacts and that was the "key". At the end, anything is possible when it comes down to a rebound or a defense. We executed the defensive play on the pick n' roll wrong and Spanoulis scored the three".
TREMMELL DARDEN: "We are happy to have won. It was a tough victory and we have a lot to learn from it. We have been improving with each single game. We made mistakes and we need to fix them. It's a victory that attests to our character as a team. We returned to the game after trailing by 10 in the last quarter. They played zone defense for quite some time and controlled the rhythm, since they stopped us from running. We were shooting poorly from the perimeter and when you don't find target, zone defense is a good defense".