By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
Olympiacos almost completely blew a 21-point lead but ultimately managed to hold off Darussafaka Dogus, winning 81 – 73 in Piraeus
This victory further cements the Reds’ presence in the Top 4 of the table, since they are third with a 18 – 7 record and mathematically in the playoffs. Meanwhile, Dacka faced defeat number 13 and is ninth and out of the of the playoffs zone with five games remaining int the regular season.
The efforts of Khem Birch (13 points, 8 rebounds, 4 blocks), Matt Lojeski (12 points) and Erick Green (11 points), helped Olympiacos hold complete dominion over its opponents for the first 25 minutes, but ultimately it was the beneficial presence of captain Vassilis Spanoulis (8 points, 8 assists) that helped the hosts win the day.
After coach Blatt’s players recovered from a 21-point deficit, 62 – 41, in the mid of the third quarter, thanks to Brad Wanamaker‘s (23 points, 6 asssists) and Will Clyburn’s (20 points, 7 rebounds) extreme levels of aggressiveness, the Reds found themselves ahead 69 – 58 in the end of the period and then up only 71 – 67 five minutes into the fourth.
Spanoulis began taking action, managing to fix some problems in the stale Olympiacos‘ offense that had produced only 2 points in five minutes during the final quarter. With some individual efforts, he jump-started his team’s engines and came up with a huge sequence of plays on both ends to personally make it 79 – 71 with two minutes left.
Darussafaka Dogus was obviously spent from all the hard work it did to almost erase the 21- margin and Olympiacos celebrated the club’s 92 birthday with a victory.