By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
Olympiacos Piraeus was the winner of one tough, highly physical battle against Bayern Munich. Behind 16 points, eight assists and tremendous defense overall by Thomas Walkup, the Reds took a 76 – 72 victory on the road to close the double-game EuroLeague week with a perfect record.
“Our defense for sure,” Walkup said when asked about the keys to Olympiacos’ win. His team is now 14-11. “They had 72 points, which is a great number. But also our toughness. Our fans here really brought it. Great showing for an away game. But most of all it was our toughness, fighting through, especially in the second half.”
“It felt good. I felt it was a lot of space, I felt I was playing at my pace. It feels really good when you score or make a play and everybody on your team is hyping you up,” he added on his scoring and playmaking output. “You feel good and you have your teammates’ support. That’s all you can ask and that’s how tight we are as a team.”
The details that made the difference
Giannoulis Larentzakis iced the win for Olympiacos with a pair of free throws with three seconds remaining. He had previously delivered a beautiful nutmeg pass to Filip Petrusev who put their team up by 5 points before Sylvain Francisco hit a triple to keep Bayern in the game. The German side fouled Larentzakis quickly and his 2-2 sealed the outcome.
Petrusev provided Olympiacos with 14 points (12 in the second half) on 6-8 shots over 19 minutes. Ignas Brazdeikis contributed 11 points for the Greek side that turned a seven-point deficit (44-37) into a nine-point lead (51 – 60) over nine minutes.
“We played really good defense in the second half,” Olympiacos coach Giorgos Bartzokas said. He pleased to see his team committing zero turnovers in the second half after having five at the break. “We just gave them some crucial from offensive rebounds. We didn’t give them anything for free, anything for granted on set offense. I consider this win one of the most important wins of the season.”
Serge Ibaka (18 points, eight rebounds) and Francisco combined for eight unanswered points that made it 59 – 60 with 6:33 remaining as the match became a close clash once more. Olympiacos managed to stay ahead and in the end, leave with the much important win.
“It’s hard to say what went wrong in a game like this,” Bayern coach Pablo Laso said following a result that dropped his squad at 10 – 15. “I think it was one time where we had a good defense, a good stop and all of a sudden they got an offensive rebound and kicked it out to McKissic who had a 3-pointer. I think that was the turning points of the game. We had some good and bad moment but I think that was a moment that was hard for us. We still recovered and we had our chances in the end but we were a little bit behind after the play.”