Dorsey debuts with an easy victory
Olympiacos began the second round of the Greek League with a victory. With Joey Dorsey playing for the first time with the “red” shirt, the players under Dusan Ivkovic began the game rather numb, but then sped up and reached an easy victory 90-60.
PAOK started out focused at the Peace and Friendship Stadium and with excellent shooting percentages. Thanks to these, they led 25-20 at 11’ and controlled the rhythm. Ivkovic shuffled the cards, ordered a pressing defense all over the court and everything changed within three minutes. With an 11-0 streak, Olympiacos led 31-25 and never lost lead till the end of the game.
The “reds” pressing defense was the main characteristic of the second half, when Ivkovic used Joey Dorsey and changed teams many times trying different things in view of the TOP-16 premiere against CSKA.
Pressing defense was the key that gave Gecevicius and Antic the opportunity to take the lead from Printezis (15 points in the first half) and raise the difference above 20 points reaching a final 30 points play at the end (with a three-pointer by Antic).
Τhe quarters: 20-23, 45-36, 67-45, 90-60
ΟLYMPIACOS(Ivkovic): Hines 6, Antic 17(1), Spanoulis 7(1), Dorsey 2, Pelekanos 2, Gecevicius 14(2), Glyniadakis 6, Printezis 19(1), Papanikolaou 8(1), Mantzaris, Sloukas 7(1), Κatsivelis 2
PAOK (Μarkopoulos): Giddens 2, Stiggers 7, Αrapis, Aleksic 4, Νtikoudis 17, Κalampokis 7, Wright 5(1), Giannakides 7, Κalles 6, Κalampakas 5(1), Τsakaleris
DUSAN IVKOVIC: Once again we had two different halves. We did not show the necessary concentration in the first half. We had players like Spanoulis and Katsivelis who came from injuries and we had wanted to get into rhythm. It was also Dorsey that has only been with us for two days. PAOK played very well in the beginning and had a shooting percentage of 74, which is very high. We stayed alive at that point, because we maintained a good ratio of assists against turnovers. We were more focused in the second half and gave everyone the chance to all our players to play. We now have the game against CSKA ahead of us and we will try with a lot of work to find ourselves.
Vassilopoulos has been making all practices and it has been two weeks now that he’s a full member of the team. With what he’s been through for the past two years, we need to be patient and find the right moment to get him into the games. It’s still too early for him to play such strong game. He’s got patience though, he’s good at practices and that’s very good news for us.
We did not register Lucas and Howard for the second round of the Greek League. Law is also coming, who has European experience by now and has played 9 games with Partizan for the Euroleague. The players have contracts that have not expired, so we cannot talk about this subject right now. It’s still too early to analyze the foreign players. Law played his last game on December 22; we need to see the shape he’s in. All the players that are with the team had been in good situations, they have worked well and we have to wait and see how it goes.
DIMITRIS KATSIVELIS: It was a good game for us. We did not play good defense in the first quarter, but we got better and this helped us widen the difference margin playing better in both offense and defense. We keep the victory and the good periods in our game and we are now thinking about the TOP-16.
SOULIS MARKOPOULOS: There is quality difference among the two teams. We have been having a lot of problems and the more the time was running, the more it became obvious. With so many turnovers against a team such as Olympiacos, you can have no luck. I did not like the fact that when we trailed, we stopped fighting. This is very bad for our team and it needs to change quickly. We need to try a lot more in our upcoming games.
MICHALIS GIANNAKIDES: Congratulations to Olympiacos for winning the game. We were competitive for some time in the game, but then the opponent led by far and had the experience and quality to handle the lead. We still have a lot of work to do to become better and cover the lost ground.