By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Vassilis Spanoulis was absent, Brian Roberts’ return to EuroLeague was postponed and Kim Tillie got injured during warm-up, missing the appointment against his former team.
None of those mattered for last season’s EuroLeague finalist Olympiacos that began the 2017-2018 expedition by defeating Baskonia 75 – 64 in a game that took place in Heraklion, Crete.
“It was a good win. We fought and we try to improve in every game. To be better,” said All-EuroLeague First Team selection Giorgos Printezis who finished the match with 17 points on 8/12 shooting from the field.
The game-winning factor: It was pretty much a solid team effort for coach Giannis Sfairopoulos’ players that neutralized their opponents’ main weapons. Baskonia had a negative assist/turnover ratio (13/14) and their main facilitators, Marcelinho Huertas and Jayson Granger, scored 10 and 12 points each but totaled only 5 assists.
Only Tornike Shengelia provided a truly substantial offensive contribution from the Basques’ side, finishing with 13 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists.
The turning point: There were two decisive moments for Olympiacos in the match. The first came early when the secondary squad of the Reds entered the match with the score 9 – 12 and gave energy through Kostas Papanikolaou (11 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists), hustle and buckets thanks to Dimitris Agravanis (13 points, 5 rebounds) and some an extra attacking pole courtesy of Hollis Thompson (8 points, 7 rebounds, five of them on offense) All these helped the hosts finish the halftime up 41 – 33.
Baskonia’s reactions arrived only when their opponents grabbed double-digit leads and weren’t sufficient to make a difference. When coach Pablo Prigioni’s players made it 60 – 54 early in the fourth period, Papanikolaou hit back-to-back triples and Printezis scored for the 70 – 54 with 5:34 remaining.
The guests only managed to decrease that margin near the end.
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