By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
Olimpia Milano became the first team to beat EuroLeague standings leader Olympiacos Piraeus in nearly two months. Behind 18 points plus five assists by Billy Baron, Milano actually routed Olympiacos 83 – 62 to grab their fourth straight win and retain at least some slim chances to make the playoffs.
Following seven consecutive EuroLeague wins, Olympiaos suffered its heaviest loss this season. The Reds are now tied with Barcelona at 18-8 and the second place in the standings.
“It’s always easy when shots go in, for sure,” Baron said after shooting 4-6 triples. “We put together our best game of the year so far and we just need to keep building on this. There is still a long way to go and we still have a lot of ground to make up, but if we keep playing like this, hopefully we can get some crucial wins down the road.”
After a balanced first half (35-32), Milano made a big step up on both ends in the beginning of the second half with a 12-0 run and took a 54 – 39 lead after back-to-back triples by Baron. Olympiacos, the top offensive team in EuroLeague, was unable to produce against their opponents’ defense, committing also several turnovers (19 vs. Milano’s 11). The hosts took great advantage of these mistakes, scoring 32 points off of them.
Milano proceeded to take a 66 – 46 advantage early in the fourth period. Olympiacos reduced it to to 12, 70 – 58, but Baron and Nicolo Melli combined for a 6-0 run that pushed back the visiting side for good.
“The crucial thing today was to play hard and compete with the best team in the Euroleague,” Milano coach Ettore Messina said. “It’s always 50-50. You need to do the best possible job, but you also need your opponent to play a little bit below their usual standard. They probably did; once in a while it happens even to the greatest teams. We just took advantage of that.”
Melli finished with 10 points, eight rebounds and some strong defenses on EuroLeague leading scorer and MVP favorite Sasha Vezenkov who was held at 10 points (on 3-7 shots) and six rebounds. The Olympiacos star had scored 20+ points in the three previous games.
Thomas Walkup also scored 10 for Olympiacos. “Milan played with a lot of motivation and physicality; they took all the 50-50 balls,” Olympiacos coach Giorgos Bartzokas commented. “For us, it was important to match this up and we didn’t. We need to ask ourselves why, but we trust our players as we are having a fantastic season and we are going to come back again.”