By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
KAUNAS, Lithuania – Olympiacos was losing by 12 at halftime in the semifinal of the 2023 EuroLeague Final Four and what happened after that belongs to a sports movie.
“We talked to each other, Pap (ed.note: team captain Kostas Papanikolaou) came down, and he said it’s just a 12 points deficit, we are good, we have been here before”, explained Thomas Walkup who didn’t score in the game, but his defense on Mike James was one of the keys of Olympiacos comeback in a third quarter with a partial 27-2 score for the Reds.
As he said to Eurohoops: “It’s corny but we showed the heart of a champion, we had a great quarter and we made a statement that we were not going to lose this game”.
It was a triumph and also a personal redemption for Thomas Walkup and Olympiacos who last year was beaten on the last shot by Anadolu Efes in the Final Four semifinal.
It was a game to remember for Walkup, who didn’t score not even one point in the game but managed to keep scoreless Mike James in the third period and forced Monaco coach Sasa Obradovic to use him as an example.
As Obradovic said in the press conference: “People are judging via stats. Real justice is seeing the player who scored 0 points and dominated. There was a leader, who took the ball, took responsibility, and put people on the spot. Destroyed everything defensively.”