By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
On Sunday, Barcelona not only won but dominated the Spanish “Clasico” against archrival Real Madrid by letting the “Blancos” shoot the ball from afar and ferociously protecting the paint.
Real finished with 2/20 and lost 94 – 72. Great success for Barcelona, right?
Barca head coach Svetislav Pesic probably thought so. Thus he employed the same tactic against Olympiacos. Did it work?
You should be the judge of that. Barcelona perhaps its biggest victory in this EuroLeague season by crushing Olympiacos 90 – 63 in an emphatic fashion. It was a great battle by the Blaugrana who put a superb effort on the floor (evident by the 50 rebounds they collected) despite the fact that they were already eliminated from playoff contention.
The Reds had an abysmal 4/28 from beyond the arc with two minutes left, when everything was already said and done. It was percentage that doomed their problematic offense and had an immediate effect on the other end. With every missed shot, they gave their opponents plenty of opportunities to score abundantly in transition, an area where Barca thrives on.
Barcelona began creating their lead following a balanced first half (38 – 40). They stormed out of the locker rooms to first make get ahead 41 – 48 and then quickly increasing their advantage to 16, 41 – 57 in the mid of the third quarter.
Olympiacos recovered a bit thanks to Jamel McLean (14 points, 10 rebounds) and cut its deficit to 11, 52 – 63. But Barcelona was simply unstoppable and proceeded to treating its host like it was a punching bag.
Pesic’s players absolutely dominated the final quarter with an outstanding 3 – 21 partial score before the final stretch, to cruise towards their triumph. Olympiacos simply looked unable to even fight back and saw its record dropping to 18 – 8. They are still second in the standings but might fall to the third spot if Fenerbahce beats CSKA Moscow on Friday.
Ante Tomic (19 points, 10 rebounds) and Adrien Moerman (17 points, 13 rebounds) were a force inside the paint finishing with double-doubles. Thomas Heurtel added 13 points plus 7 assists for the winners, en route to surpassing Teo Papaloukas in the all-time assists list in EuroLeague.
Giorgos Printezis scored 14 points for Olympiacos.