By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
32 – 15. This partial score in the fourth quarter, which could have been part of a blowout, pretty much says everything about how superior Crvena Zvezda was down the stretch to ultimately beat Olympiacos 89 – 78 in Belgrade.
While Red Star snapped a three-game losing streak and improved to 8 -12 with its first-ever victory over Olympiacos, the Greek team lost its second match in a row and dropped to 13 – 7 and the fifth spot of the standings.
This triumph by one of the EuroLeague underdog’s against last season’s finalists, and possibly a contender in this campaign as well, becomes even more impressive considering the fact that the players of Zvezda saw their coach ejected early in the second half.
It was momentum-changing moment since things were going nearly perfectly as planned for Crvena Zvezda for more than 22 minutes.
By prohibiting Olympiacos from becoming threatening close to basket and after winning nearly every 1 vs 1 battle on the offensive end, the ABA League champions had taken a 45 – 37 lead near the beginning of the third period.
Dusan Alimpijevic, the mastermind of Red Star’s defensive plan that had forced Olympiacos out of its usual, reliable comfort zone, was certainly pleased. But then he got kinda betrayed by his own inexperience.
The youngest ever head coach in EuroLeague protested a decision of the referees to give a shooting foul on Olympiacos’ Brian Roberts rather vociferously and received two technical fouls. He was ejected. And shortly afterward, his players started to crumble.
That was the stretch where a struggling Olympiacos began finding a couple of long-range looks from its best shooters, Janis Strelnieks and Kyle Wiltjer, and did what it was unable to do night long: Read some mismatches and touch the ball inside the paint for easy baskets.
The latter paced the Reds towards getting a 7-point lead, 61 – 68, two minutes into the fourth period. Yet everything went into a downward spiral after that.
The hosts increased their aggressiveness, took advantage of their opponents’ mistakes and began chewing their deficit until Mathias Lessort scored for the 69 – 68, with 5:50 remaining. Dylan Ennis took the baton and began doing practically everything on the floor. Scoring for himself, dishing assists to his teammates and grabbing rebounds to push his squad with counterattacks that melted Olympiacos’ lackluster defensive transition.
Alen Omic, the Serbians’ latest acquisition was in the right place at the right time to inflict his own share of damage while his team grabbed and then preserved a two-possession distance.
The more the match reached its final moments the more Olympiacos looked empty of game-winning juice. Nikola Milutinov went 0/2 from the line and Vassilis Spanoulis, his team’s top scorer with 16 points, lost a 3-pointer with the score 82 – 75 and 1:14 to play.
Then Ennis put the exclamation mark to his own performance with the dagger for the 85 – 75. There was no way back with 44 seconds remaining.
The Canadian guard finished with 21 points, 8 rebounds and 5 assists in his career night in EuroLeague. An outing which has an even greater value taking into account that Crvena Zvezda missed James Feldeine in the backcourt.
If EuroLeague didn’t pick the MVP of the Week according to numbers, then the honor should have already been his.