By Rigas Dardalis/ dardalis@eurohoops.net
There was a movie ending in this season’s Euroleague Final. Against impossible odds Olympiacos trailed by 19 points, but somehow came back and pulled one of the biggest upsets in a Euroleague Final.
Giorgos Printezis scored almost at the final buzzer the two pointer that made the final score 62-61 for the Reds in a fourth quarter with a partial score 22-8 for his team. Printezis shared the spotlight with Kostas Papanikolaou that had his best Euroleague game with 18 points and, of course, Final Four MVP Vasilis Spanoulis who scored 15 points, although the come back of his team started with him on the bench by the fierce defense of Kyle Hines, Mantzaris and Sloukas. “We grew up together in a very short time and my players were hungry”, was the explanation of Dusan Ivkovic, the coach who also led Olympiacos in his first Euroleague title in 1997.
“It’s the most heart breaking loss of my career”, was the reaction of Euroleague season MVP Andrei Kirilenko who had 12 points and 10 rebounds in the Final. Milos Teodosic of CSKA Moscow started the game on fire, scored 15 points, but most of them came in the first half.
CSKA – Olympiakos 61-62
CSKA: Teodosic 15, Lavrinovic 5, Siskauskas 8, Krstic 11, Kirilenko 12 (10 r.), Voronov, Vorontsevich, Shved 3, Kaun 2, Khryapa 3, Gordon 2
OLYMPIACOS: Hines, Antic 7, Spanoulis 15, Dorsey, Keselj 3, Papadopoulos, Printezis 12, Papanikolaou 18, Mantzaris 3, Sloukas 4, Law
See the Euroleague Final press conference and the quotes of the players after the game.