By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Nando De Colo missed only one field goal (9/10) en route to scoring 25 points and posting 31 PIR, and CSKA Moscow beat Olympiacos Piraeus 98 – 91 at home to secure the top spot in the EuroLeague standings with three games remaining for the completion of the regular season.
The “Army Men” are now 22 – 5, three victories above second Fenerbahce. Even if the Turkish team wins all three remaining games and CSKA suffers an equal number of losses, the Russian side owns the tiebreaking advantage due to their win in Istanbul.
This defeat dropped Olympiacos to an 18 – 9 record and the third spot. Neither Giorgos Printezis’ season-high 24 points, nor Vassilis Spanoulis’ 17 points plus 6 assists (but also 5 turnovers) were enough for the Reds (which played minus forward Kostas Papanikolaou and guard Vangelis Mantzaris) that fell behind near the end of the third period and never recovered.
With the score 61 – 60, CSKA made a 14 – 2 partial run thanks to De Colo (also 5 rebounds, 4 assists) and Sergio Rodriguez (13 points) to gain their biggest lead in the match and establish a solid control over the game.
The guests were unable to cut their deficit to lower than eight and sustained their second loss in a row in the competition.
Cory Higgins also did a lot of work for CSKA with 14 points plus 4 assists while Will Clyburn had 12 plus 6 rebounds. Nikola Milutinov notched 10 points and 5 points for Olympiacos.
Photo: EuroLeague