By Nikos Varlas/ varlas@eurohoops.net
Against the defending back to back champions, Real Madrid proved to be the team to beat this season in Euroleague. After the first game of the play offs the score was 88-71 for the Spaniards who were firing on all cylinders. Rudy Fernandez (20 p.) and Nikola Mirotic (15 p.) were red hot, while Vasilis Spanoulis tried his best with 18 points but didn’t had any real help.
Real started the game with a 27-12 advantage after the first quarter and then Olympiacos got into London mode and came back, tying the score at 40-40. However the first half ended with the hosts having the 48-41 lead and never look back after that. The score was 68-51 just before the end of the third quarter and the guests couldn’t get closer than 10 points until the end.
Rudy was “rude”, scoring by any possible way and keeping a more than safe distance for his team every time Olympiacos was trying to get back to the game. His final 34 ranking is a career best in Euroleague. As he said: “Olympiacos is a great team, with great players but with our fans helping us we would like to get a second win and get a 2-0 advantage before travelling to Greece. We will try to play again the same way”. Coach Bartzokas of Olympiacos stated: “We approached the game the wrong way. We should let Real score in transition any play uptempto, but they did thanks to our turnovers. What’s important now is to prepare for the next game”.