By Antonis Stroggylakis/ astroggylakis@eurohoops.net
Quickly getting up 19-12 with 4:57 minutes on the clock in the first quarter, Barcelona seemed to have approached Game 4 in Piraeus the right way, wanting to close things up and advance to the EuroLeague Final Four in Berlin.
Instead, entering the second quarter on a 15-o scoring run, Olympiacos ran away and forced Game 5, tying at 2-2 ahead of next week’s decisive clash in Barcelona. It all ended up with a 34-point win, beating Roger Grimau’s team 92-58.
In the aftermath, Nikola Kalinic was asked about what happened in the Peace and Friendship Stadium. “They killed us with physicality, they were more physical. They wanted the game more and that’s it. I don’t know why that happened, but it happens sometimes. They took us out, they used the energy of the crowd and they killed us”, he told Eurohoops.
Now, the series comes back to Barcelona, where the two teams took one victory each earlier in the matchup. “They played with much more energy, every subbed came in and gave more energy. If we match this, I think we’re a better team”, the Serbian team firmly affirmed.
The Catalan team surely doesn’t want to end up on the wrong side of history, avoiding the possibility of Olympiacos becoming the first team in EuroLeague history to win a Game 5 on the road. “This is why we worked for the whole year, we have a home-court advantage and we want to use it. It’s much easier to play in front of your fans in do-or-die games”, he said.
“We’re gonna use the energy of the crowd and play with more energy, that’s the idea It’s not going to be easy, they showed tonight they’re a hell of a team, we have to respect that, prepare our minds, prepare tactics, our bodies, and go for a win”, he finally concluded in his team’s locker room.