By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Isaiah Canaan scored a career-high 31 on nine triples (the most he’s ever made in a single game) as Olympiacos Piraeus beat ALBA Berlin 101 – 87 at home to bounce back to EuroLeague wins. The Reds moved to 13-11 while their opponents are now tied for a league-worst 5-19.
Moses Wright had a strong EuroLeage debut with Olympiacos, finishing with 15 points, five rebounds, and four blocks while being also of big help during the decisive third period.
ALBA was up 45 – 50 early in the second half but then the hosts made a 23 – 11 run to not only turn the game around but establish a large margin.
Canaan was particularly instrumental during that stretch for Olympiacos, having 14 of his points in the third period and hitting 4-6 threes. He heard his name being sung by the fans.
Wright also got the crowd excited with his dunks and overall presence, getting plenty of minutes in light of the absences of big men Moustapha Fall, Nikola Milutinov, and Filip Petrusev.
As he admitted: “I had just one practice and saw that the team has very good ball movement near the paint. I came to a big club, there is pressure. At half-time, I relaxed and said that’s why I signed and came here. I belong here and I had to show it”.
Nigel Williams-Goss provided 14 points, four rebounds and four steals to Olympiacos.
ALBA collapsed in the second half
Jonas Mattiseck and Tim Schneider had 12 points apiece for ALBA which closed halftime up 45 – 48 but couldn’t respond to Olympiacos’ counterattack. The Albatrosses were missing Johannes Thiemann and Luis Olinde, however, coach Israel Gonzalez didn’t hide his disappointment.
As he said: “Everything was decided in the third quarter and in the second half we generally played very bad defense, we made a lot of unforced errors, we gave them easy points and when you give easy baskets to Olympiakos then you have a problem. I can’t take anything from this game”.
On the other side, Olympiacos coach Giorgos Bartzokas has a different outlook and different issues to solve, having to add Wright to the roster and not having two key bigs in Fall and Milutinov.
“There are many things in the match that were important”, he explained. “The zone defense that ALBA decided to play gave us offensive rebounds. We had second chances, we shot well. We have good shooters, and if they have rhythm, especially against the zone, they can make nine threes, which is what Canaan did. ALBA was shooting 63% on 3-pointers at halftime, we could stop them with fouls, but we had to sacrifice some fouls and not think about it. These are the basics of the sport”.