The curtain comes down with a victory
The game had no ranking importance but in no case did the players of Dusan Ivkovic were indifferent, with Raso Nesterovic being the best of all. The “reds” played great in the second half of the game against Zalgiris, won an easy 78-64 and offered a great show for the 6000 fans that were in the Peace and Friendship Stadium.
The Lithuanians entered the game more lively and despite that Olympiacos was leading from the beginning, Zalgiris seemed to control the game. The entrance of Yotam Halperin and Raso Nesterovic on the floor gave a fresh perspective to the Piraeus team that took control of the game and using an excellent defense as their weapon in the second half reached a very easy victory.
Τhe quarters: 19-20, 41-34, 58-49, 78-64.
Referees: Martin (Spain), Chiari (Ιtaly), Latisevs (Latvia).
Οlympiacos (Dusan Ivkovic): Papaloukas 4, Νesterovic 20, Spanoulis 10, Μavrokefalides 6, Glyniadakis 4, Νielsen 3, Papanikolaou, Erceg 2, Τeodosic 5 (1), Halperin 12 (2), Gordon 12.
Zalgiris Kaunas (Elias Zouros): Brown 7 (1), Pocius 5 (1), Κalnietis 16, Delininkaitis 8 (2), Klimavicius, Jankunas 5, Kuzminskas, Marjanovic 8, Collins 4, Plaisted 11.
DUSAN IVKOVIC: “We only fairly qualified for the play-offs. The goals tonight had been simple, to finish the TOP-16 playing good basketball. We made it, we have had some ups and downs, but we showed that we are in good shape at the moment and we control the situations”, Duda commented and added: “We are going to have a break and it only depends on us if we maintain the shape we are in right now. I’m happy from the performance of my players. After the home defeat to Fenerl/Ulker we became more mature, we became a team and qualified top of our group.
The loss to Fener helped us. We worked a lot with the hands and that helps us steal balls. We play a very pressing game, the big guys help and everyone understands the role they have on the team, just like Halperin and Gordon who have realized what we want and how they should be playing”.
RASO NESTEROVIC: “We won because we played as a team. It has nothing to do with my performance. I wish to thank the fans for the applause”, the Slovenian said and added: “After the loss to Fener, we won games and became confident. The series against Siena are going to be tough, but we have the home court advantage, which we have to exploit”.
JAMON GORDON: “It’s difficult to play these games, but we entered the second half very seriously. It’s going to be a great series against Siena. I don’t think that the postponement of the Cup game is going to affect us, because what’ difficult with Olympiacos, is training, not playing the games”.