By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Olympiacos Piraeus saw Maccabi Tel Aviv coming back from a 15-point halftime deficit, its leading scorer getting fouled out in the third period and a key point guard being unable to continue in the second half but ultimately got a 79 – 74 win on the road to bounce back to positive results in EuroLeague.
“We are shorthanded, we have injuries.. and we need to win every game now,”Olympiacos center Moustapha Fall said. He finished with 10 points, six rebounds, and four assists, playing 35 minutes in the absence of big man Nikola Milutinov.
Isaiah Canaan “iced” the win for Olympiacos by hitting 2-2 free throws with seven seconds remaining to put his team up by five. Ignas Brazdeikis went 1-2 before him but the Lithuanian forward grabbed the offensive rebound before the ball went to his teammate.
Roman Sorkin, the main figure in Maccabi’s comeback with 14 out of his team-high 16 points in the last 13 minutes, had made it 72 – 74 from the line after also draining a triple that brought Maccabi at a shooting distance (72 – 74) with 1:11 left and for the first time after the first period.
“Different guys stepped up, different guys played well. Luke did a great job in his return, shout out to him for giving us a lift,” Thomas Walkup said after posting 13 points plus six assists while playing strong defense on Brown. Sikma made his return to Olympiacos after Round 3, scoring eight points and getting four rebounds in his father’s, Hall of Famer Jack Sikma, birthday.
Two halves, two different stories
Olympiacos was dominant in the second quarter to move up 31 – 56 at halftime and led 46 – 60 with four minutes to play in the third period despite Nigel Williams-Goss getting sidelined with an elbow injury.
Alec Peters, who had 13 points then, picked up his fourth foul and received a technical in the same play while Maccabi became tougher on defense to reduce the margin to single digits. The Yellows kept pushing but Olympiacos retained a two-possession advantage before the final minutes and Sorkin’s triple.
“I want to congratulate the players, it’s never easy to play in an empty arena and we need the crowd,” Olympiacos coach Giorgos Bartzokas said on the fact that Maccabi is playing its home games in Belgrade behind closed doors.
“We have a shorter rotation because of our injuries and now we lost Williams-Goss in the first half and Peters with the ejection. Our rotation became shorter but we managed to win. We expected Maccabi’s comeback and a lot of strange things happened. This win was important.”
Tamir Blatt had 13 points and six assists for Maccabi while the team’s main contributor Lorenzo Brown had his worst game this season with 2-13 shots (0-8 triples), plus eight assists.
“We lost the game in the first half, defensively,’ Maccabi coach Oded Kattash said. “In the second half we did a good job defensively, we played with great energy. At least we put the right energy in the last 20 minutes.”
Maccabi missed Wade Baldwin once more. He was expected to play but due to a stomach virus it was announced just minutes before the tipoff that he was out.