By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Thomas Walkup scored a EuroLeague career-high 22 points and dished out seven assists while Shaq McKissic had a new season-best 20 points as Olympiacos Piraeus beat Zalgiris Kaunas 95 – 76 on the road to register its fourth straight EuroLeague win.
“I think the coach noticed that this is the first time I’ve been truly healthy in the last couple of weeks,” McKissic said on his performance. He often also carried playmaking duties in light of guards Nigel Williams-Goss, Giannoulis Larentzakis and Naz Mitrou-Long being out for his team. “It’s something about fighting through it. I think something clicked this week in practice. Coach noticed it, I noticed it and we just came here to make the best out of it.”
“Shaq is back,” declared Walkup.
After a more or less balanced (39 – 41) first half, Olympiacos dominated the third period 28 – 17 thanks also to the input of Moses Wright who dropped all of his 11 points in that quarter. The Reds found easy points inside the paint as Zalgiris looked practically unable to contain its opponents.
“We controlled the pace of the game,” Olympiacos coach Giorgos Bartzokas said. “Our problem in the first half was the missed defensive rebounds. They had seven second-chance opportunities. We fixed this and our defense was solid for 40 minutes. We found a pace with different lineups. McKissic helped us a lot coming back after some time. Walkup was great. Fall and everybody contributed to this big win.”
Olympiacos went up by 21 points when McKissic made it 61 – 82 with 6:28 to play and remained in control for the remainder of the game. Alec Peters (16 points) put the icing with a triple in the last moments.
Keenan Evans led Zalgiris with 18 points. Rolands Smits had 17 points.
“We were struggling from the beginning,” Zalgiris coach Andrea Trinchieri said. “A lot of credit to Olympiacos. They played an amazing game. Very tough, they made shots. Basically, they destroyed us. It could happen and it happened. We lost our rhythm a bit. This is a very good lesson and because I have smart players I believe they will learn from that lesson.”