By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Sasha Vezenkov registered a career-high 43 (also a club record) in PIR after posting 20 points, 13 rebounds and four assists as Olympiacos Piraeus beat a shorthanded Bayern Munich team 82 – 71 on the road to improve to 6-2.
Vezenkov, who also won eight fouls, hit a pair of free throws after an offensive rebound to seal his team’s win by making it 71 – 78 with 43 seconds remaining. Bayern had approached 71 – 76 after erasing a 15-point deficit in the fourth period thanks to an 11-0 run.
“I’m very happy about this team, we started really well,” Vezenkov said.
“We knew that Bayern is in great shape – they beat Efes, they won at ALBA. Okay, they were missing some players, important players for their rotation, but we started really well, then we lost it. But we know that that you never win easy here, so I’m very happy for the team.”
Ognjen Jaramaz has 12 points and Isaac Bonga posted 11 points plus six rebounds for Bayern. The German side, that was missing Paul Zipser, Jason George, Corey Walden, Jan Wimberg and Elias Harris, reacted after a 6 – 23 start to close halftime down 30 – 43 but never cut its deficit lower than four points.
“Congrats to Olympiaocos,” Bayern coach Andrea Trinchieri said. “The first quarter cost us the game. We had a very bad approach. We were sloppy on offense and defense. Then I believe we had a good second quarter. We came back. We fought. We had a better second half. And we cut the gap to four with the ball on our hands and momentum. And then we had a couple of so-so plays, so-so calls. I’m a little surprised that we made 24 fouls, Olympiacos made 16 fouls and they shoot 23 free throws and we shoot only 12.”
“I have to underline my players that they shouldn’t foul,” Trinchieri added in a sarcastic manner.
Moustapha Fall contributed 16 points plus five rebounds to Olympiacos’ win while Kostas Sloukas scored 14 and Thomas Walkup notched nine points, seven assists and six assists. This was the Reds’ fourth away win in four games on the road, something that coach Giorgos Bartzokas touched on after the match.
“Four out of four is very important, considering that all teams we played are great teams,” Bartzokas said. “I would like to congratulate our players and our fans, who really supported us here; there was a huge number for an away game, so I think we did whatever we could to make them happy. About the game, it was a demanding game – it is always difficult to play here – but we were leading the score the whole game. We had a difference of 20 points, 10 points, 11 points, 12 points… We just had a bad second quarter on both ends, defensively and offensively. Otherwise, we matched their energy, we controlled the pace of the game, and I think it was really fair to win this game.”