By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
On the back of a powerful entrance, Olympiacos Piraeus bounced back to EuroLeague wins by defeating Bayern Munich 77 – 69 at home to improve to 7 – 6. The German side, which was minus star Serge Ibaka (rest), dropped to 6 – 7.
“The EuroLeague slogan says ‘Every Game Matters.’ The win is important,” Olympiacos coach Giorgos Bartzokas said. “It was a very strange game. We had a lead of around 12-15 points. But they scored almost 15 points in zone baskets, buzzer beaters. They insisted, they played with desire to stay in the game. OK, we won kind of ‘easy’ but there are no way games in EuroLeague.”
Olympiacos stormed into the game to grab a 24 – 8 lead at the end of the first period and simply never looked back. The Reds built a 21-point lead, 39 – 18 with two minutes to play at halftime and were up but Bayern cut that margin to 41 – 29 at the break.
Bayern made several comeback attempts but never managed to reduce its deficit to lower than nine points, until crunch time when Elias Harris scored six straight points to make it 75 – 69 with 37 seconds to play.
Giannoulis Larentzakis made a bad pass and then Sylvain Francisco found a path to the basket only to miss the layup. On the other end, Thomas Walkup drained a pair of free throws to keep Olympiacos safe and sound.
Walkup led Olympiacos overall with 14 points plus seven assists. Alec Peters provided the hosts with 14 points and seven rebounds, Giannoulis Larentzakis scored 13 and Nikola Milutinov had 12 points plus six boards.
10 minutes that made all the difference
“It wasn’t our best performance in the second, third quarter,” Walkup admitted. “But we played great in the first quarter. We got ourselves up to a wonderful lead Yes, we dropped some but we’ll never going to complain for a win in the EuroLeague. Especially considering how tight things are in the standings.”
Carsen Edwards had 11 points for Bayern. Francisco finished with 10 points (on 3-11 shots) and five assists.
“We made a lot of mistakes in the first quarter and they got a great lead,” Bayern coach Pablo Laso. “For us it’s a good lesson. We did a lot of rotation and we were able to play better after the first 10 minutes but not enough to beat Olympiacos here. We’re going to turn the page as quickly as possible. We knew it was going to be tough and a lot of credit to Olympiacos, they played very well.”