By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Olympiacos Piraeus came back from down 14 at the end of the third quarter to beat Partizan Belgrade 98 – 94 in overtime at home in one of the most exciting games of the EuroLeague season so far.
Giannoulis Larentzakis led Olympiacos in scoring with 19 points. He also made the go-ahead free throws in regulation for the 83 – 82 to complete the turnaround from a 53 – 67 deficit and then drained another pair for the 85 – 82 with seven seconds remaining. The Reds didn’t manage to foul to prevent a game-tying triple and James Nunnally made them pay with the bucket that forced the extra period.
In overtime, Nigel Williams-Goss scored the floater to put Olympiacos up 94 – 91 with 16 seconds remaining. This time, his team did foul and Aleksa Avramovic made 2-2 from the line, same as Giannoulis Larentzakis. When the hosts fouled the Partizan guard again, he went 1-2 and on the other end, Thomas Walkup put his squad up by four to secure the win.
“We won this game after a big loss in Milano, but the most important thing is that we reacted after being 15 points down. We started the second half without rhythm, but came back, scored big baskets and took this important win,” Larentzakis said after the match.
Nikola Milutinov provided 16 points and seven rebounds to Olympiacos that was missing Luke Sikma, Ignas Brazdeikis and Shaq McKissic. He was trouble for the Partizan defense that fouled him 10 times and he made the most out of this with 12-14 from the line. Alec Peters had a good opening of the match and finished with a total of 15 points.
Zach LeDay had 18 points for Partizan. Kevin Punter scored 17 while Alen Smailagic delivered 16 points, all of them in the second half. With the score 49 – 43 at the break, he opened the third period with 11 straight points to put the Serbian side ahead 51 – 54 and then his teammates used that momentum to grab a 53 – 67 lead with two minutes left for the fourth quarter.
Olympiacos chipped away that margin slowly, yet steadily to make it a game down the stretch before the two thrilling finales.
Olympiacos head coach Georgios Bartzokas gave a motivational speech to his players in the locker room after the win.
“You stayed until the end as a team, you were solid even when the team was ten points behind. We showed character , despite the difficulties. We showed heart! This is how we should play all year, be all together, solid. Now I think it’s time to unite even more, to play like last year,” Bartzokas said.
Zeljko Obradovic talked about Frank Kaminsky and Alen Smailagic being fouled out, leaving him with only young Balsa Koprivica as an option at the five.
“The first half was problematic, especially our turnovers and Olympiacos’ offensive rebounds. Even in those circumstances, we were only trailing by six points. I am very happy with how my players reacted in the second half; however, some decisions were poor, and it’s because of such decisions that we lost the game. Another very important thing is the fact that we played the end of the match without Kaminski and Smailagic. That was the biggest issue for us. We played a total of 13 minutes without a center. In basketball, 13 minutes is an eternity,” Obradovic said.