Olympiacos at the top!
In a packed SEF, Olympiacos won the derby for the top of the ranking against Barcelona (77-70) for the 27th round of the Euroleague.
Our team’s problem at the beginning had not to do so much with defense as much as with offence. Olympiacos scored for the first time in the game at 4’ (2-4) with Sasha Vezenkov, was shooting rather poorly (2/4 free throws, 3/13 twos, 1/4 threes), lost the battle of the rebounds and saw Mirotic and Sanli building a +11 lead for Barcelona (11-22) at 11’. However, the line up that stepped on the floor at the beginning of the second quarter (Sloukas, McKissic, Larentzakis, Peters and Black) was superb on both ends of the floor.
Playing a very tight defensive game and with Giannoulis Larentzakis making the difference offence wise, the ‘red & whites’ replied with a 12-0 run and got to lead for the first time in the game (23-22) at 16’. The derby was just getting started and Shaquielle McKissic verified with a three that made that marked the end of the first half (29-27) at the buzzer.
Barcelona opened fire from the three point line at the beginning of the second half and got ahead 31-33. Olympiacos responded to the challenge and despite immediately regaining the lead, they weren’t able to completely impose the tempo (43-41 at 27’). Kostas Papanikolaou, Shaquielle McKissic and Giannoulis Larentzakis sent the difference to 8p. (53-45) at 31’.
The ‘blaugrana’ once again found target from the perimeter and closed in to 2p. (53-51), but Shaquielle McKissic and Tarik Black maintained the lead for the ‘red & whites’ (63-57 at 35’). The guests refused to give up (66-63), but it was somewhere there that the February MVP, Sasha Vezenkov, took it upon himself to sing our team’s great win (75-65 at 39’).
The quarters: 11-20, 29-27, 50-45, 77-70.
OLYMPIACOS
BARCELONA
