By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
Olympiacos Piraeus bounced back to wins by defeating ASVEL Villeurbanne 85 – 73 on the road and improve its record to 8 – 8. The still winless at home ASVEL dropped to 2 – 14.
Isaiah Canaan dropped 19 points for Olympiacos and Alec Peters scored 17 while Moustapha Fall had a tremendous all-around presence with eight blocks, seven rebounds and seven assists to go with his two points.
Shaq McKissic provided the Reds with 13 points all of them in the first half to give his team a push towards going up 37 – 49 at the break.
“We just needed to pull it together,” Canaan said. “We gave up a lot of games at the end and we just got to learn fro those mistakes. Continue to get better, you got to seize the moment and you got to want the moment. My teammates did a good job in finding me, I had to be there for them to win the game.”
Paris Lee had 16 points plus seven assists and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot posted 13 points for ASVEL that was without superstar guard Nando De Colo. Their team struggled to keep up with Olympiacos‘ superior game falling behind 52 – 71 late in the third quarter.
A much needed result
“We needed this win desperately,” Olympiacos coach Giorgos Bartzokas admitted. “As you saw, it wasn’t easy. ASVEL fought until the end with two bigs in the lineups attacking the boards. We managed to win. Mous had a dominant game and helped us a lot but everyone contributed to this.”
ASVEL saw all its comeback efforts thwarted by Olympiacos and Canaan’s scoring in particular. The hosts just managed to drop the deficit below double figures when Paris Lee made it 73 – 81 with 2:10 to play from the free-throw line after winning an unsportsmanlike foul. He then found a wide-open 3-point shot from the corner but missed and that was the moment where all hopes of ASVEL for possibly turning the game back were evaporated.
“I’m proud of my players. They let everything on the court but it wasn’t enough,” ASVEL coach Gianmarco Pozzecco said. “Congratulations to Olympiacos and Giorgos Bartzokas, a great coach. They deserved to win.”
Photo Credit: EuroleagueBasketball.net