By Antonis Stroggylakis / info@eurohoops.net
Olympiacos Piraeus was near unstoppable in the first half while putting on a defensive clinic for almost the whole game to destroy Bayern Munich 83 – 60. The Reds registered their eighth win in Peace and Friendship Arena this EuroLeague season to retain an undefeated record at home.
Sasha Vezenkov dropped a team-high 16 points and grabbed nine rebounds, Giannoulis Larentzakis scored 15 and Thomas Walkup had 13 points while putting on a tremendous defensive output for the hosts that imposed their rhythm right from the start.
“It’s great that we are undefeated at our home court,” Vezenkov said. “It was really a tough game even though the score doesn’t show it. But Bayern is really a good team, a tough team. We started really well, I think we finished the game in the first half, which is very important. In the second half, we had some bad moments, but the most important thing is that we played great defense against, like I said, a really good team.”
Olympiacos‘ astonishing efficiency and Bayern’s failure to implement its usual stout defense was amply portrayed in numbers by halftime already: The home side made nearly all their 2-point attempts and scored 49 at the break despite going 0-6 from the 3-point line.
On the other side, Bayern was flying quite low with just 29 points.
Giorgos Bartzokas’ players were easily slashing their way to the basket and made the most out of their opponents’ turnovers and second-chance opportunities while Bayern was just unable to connect.
“We expected a physical and tough game, which it wasn’t finally because of our performance.” Bartzokas said. “It was a very good defensive effort, and we also had the ability with our creators to read what exactly they gave us on offense, scoring almost 50 points at halftime. For 32-35 minutes, we had a really great performance by our team.”
Olympiacos‘ absolute dominance continued in the third period and led to the margin going up to 34 points, 65-31. Bayern looked like a punching bag by that moment but refused to be completely humiliated. The moment Olympiacos became somewhat loose in the fourth quarter, the visiting side struck with 15 unanswered points – most of them after offensive rebounds or in transition after turnovers – in just four minutes to reduce the deficit to 74 – 56. It was quite the run but came a little too late to change the essence of things and the result that marked the Bavarian team’s first loss after two wins.
Only Augustine Rubit (10 points) scored in double figures for Bayern that was missing multiple players, including leading scorer Darrun Hilliard.
“The most difficult thing on those nights is to remain objective,” Bayern coach Andrea Trinchieri said. “For sure I can go in the locker room and point the finger; you didn’t do this, you didn’t do that, you were slow, you were sloppy, blah, blah, blah, and go with this for 25 minutes, I can do it easily. But I cannot forget the fact we are playing in an emergency without four players. Every game is a big game; we had Efes, then we had ALBA on the road.”
“Those nights, sh-t happens, and it was a bad night, but I stick with my players,” Trinchieri added. “I won’t point fingers tonight. We have to get better at everything, in 48 hours we have another very difficult game, but I stay on their side. It was a very embarrassing performance from all of us. We need to get better in 48 hours.” His players will look to recover in Belgrade against Crvena Zvezda Friday (17/12).
Olympiacos is facing ASVEL Villeurbanne in Piraeus the same night.