By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Barcelona survived a highly dramatic game against Olympiacos to get a 76 – 74 win on the road in Round 23 of the EuroLeague regular season.
Cory Higgins scored the go-ahead free throws with six seconds to play and after Nikola Mirotic missed a free throw following a technical foul given to Giorgos Bartzokas who was ejected from the game.
Olympiacos saw multiple opportunities going to waste on the other end. First Vassilis Spanoulis missed in a 3-point attempt, and then Hassan Martin and Kostas Sloukas also misfired in consecutive tip-ins. Giorgos Printezis’ putback basket went in but the game clock had expired.
Mirotic finished with 16 points and five rebounds while Higgins had 14. Nick Calathes had 12 points and seven assists for Barcelona that improved to 17 – 6 with this win to remain the standings leader.
Olympiacos (that was minus injured Kostas Papanikolaou and Sasha Vezenkov) had come back from a 30 – 42 deficit early in the second half to go up 47 – 46 thanks to a 11- 0 run. Shaq McKissic (18 points), Kostas Sloukas (11 points, five assists), Vassilis Spanoulis (10 points) and Giorgos Printezis (10 points) scored double-figures for the hosts while Octavius Ellis posted 13 rebounds to go with his eight points.
Spanoulis made consecutive layups down the stretch for the 72 – 70 and 74 – 72 with 1:10 to play. Mirotic tied the score from the free throw line and then Sloukas lost the ball, which resulted to Higgins winning the foul that led to his two decisive free throws.
Barcelona held control in the first half, going to the locker room with a 30 – 40. Pierre Oriola had given the Blaugrana a starting push with 10 points out of his 11 points in the first quarter, which saw his team gaining a 12 – 21 early advantage.