By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
Olympiacos Piraeus saw Fenerbahce Beko coming back from down 13 points and taking the lead in the fourth period. They were completely scoreless for six and half minutes and looking pretty much unable to put the ball to the basket while their opponents were now the ones at the driver’s seat.
Enter Kostas Sloukas. Olympiacos‘ leader scored eight points out of his 14 points in the last five minutes, including the contested game-winner as the Reds took a 67 – 65 win in one of the most dramatic finales of the EuroLeague season so far.
Jan Vesely led Fenerbahce with 14 points and nine rebounds. This was the third straight defeat for the Turkish side and also the third consecutive match that the Turkish team loses in the very last moments. And the perpetrator was one of its former stars.
Sloukas pulled off the 3-point play to tie the game at 62 with 4:51 minutes to play and then drained the go-ahead 3-pointer to put his team up 65 – 62.
After Achille Polonara made things even with a 3-point play of his own and following a foul by Sloukas, the Greek guard drained a tough mid-range jumper in front of Vesely on the other end to give his team the lead with two seconds remaining. Marko Guduric couldn’t connect from long range and Olympiacos came up on top.
Sloukas also had five assists. Moustapha Fall finished with 10 points and nine rebounds in his top performance with the Olympiacos jersey. Giannoulis Larentzakis and Tyler Dorsey had 10 points apiece, the latter dropping all of them in the first half.
Olympiacos led 40 – 27 late in the first half and retained an advantage, going up 55 – 42 with three minutes to play in the third period after a basket by Fall. The hosts were firing on all cylinders from the 3-point line since they went 6 – 9 after starting the game with 3-11.
Fener began reducing its deficit piece by piece and made it 55 – 53 at the end of the third period. Oly suffered a total offensive blackout while their opponents took their first lead in the match when Guduric drained a triple for the 55 – 56 and then also scored for the 57 – 60.
That was the moment when Oly began waking up from its slumber with free throws by Larentzakis and then Sloukas stepping up to hand his team the victory.
Nando De Colo and Marko Guduric added 10 points apiece for Fener that saw Dyshawn Pierre getting injured. “I’m a little worried about it,” said coach Sasha Djordjevic.