By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Olympiacos and Crvena Zvezda are wearing red and white jerseys and those colors painted the end of Thursday night in Euroleague. The Serbs got an easy win over Galatasaray at Belgrade (76-68) while Olympiacos edged Valencia on the road (71-68).
The game at Kombank Arena was decided by a partial 29-10 score in the second period, which gave to the hosts a 46-30 half time lead. Center Boban Marjanovic couldn’t be denied (22 p. on 11/14 shots, 10 r.) and Marcus Williams (15 p., 7 as.) kept things in check during the second half. The guests didn’t have injured Ender Arslan, but still his absence doesn’t justify the result.
At Valencia we had a real fight and close game from wire to wire. Τhe game was tied at 58 with seven minutes to go, the hosts got a four points lead (62-58), Olympiacos had a 8-0 run (66-62) and 67 seconds before the final buzzer we had one more tie (66-66). Matt Lojeski scored (68-66) for the Reds, Loncar had 2/2 free throws (68-68) and the biggest play of the night belonged to Kostas Sloukas.
After a missed three by Vasilis Spanoulis, who had in total 21 points, Olympiacos got the offensive rebound. Sloukas was fouled, he went to the line with 6 seconds to go, made the first free throw, missed the second, but got one more offensive rebound. He was fouled again and made both of his free throws this time (71-68). On the contrary Sam Van Rossom who was fouled with two seconds on the clock missed both his shots and the game was over.