By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
Kostas Sloukas had his top game ever against former team Olympiacos with 20 points, five rebounds and four assists, leading a Jan Vesely-less Fenerbahce to a 73-72 win in Piraeus for Round 7 of the EuroLeague regular season.
“I’m proud of my players, especially for Sloukas as the big leader of our team”, mentioned coach Zeljko Obradovic in his post-game quotes. “We showed our character, it’s never easy to win here, Olympiacos is a great team”
Sloukas also dropped six decisive consecutive points down the stretch to push Fenerbahce towards victory. With his team down 69 – 67, the Greek combo guard made it 69 – 73 thanks to three free throws and then a 3-point bucket with one minute remaining. Kostas Papanikolaou then answered with the same currency to make it a one-possession affair.
Fener didn’t connect to the basket and the Reds had a chance to win it but on the other end, Nigel Williams-Goss, who had previously hit a basket and dished out the assist for the 69 – 67, missed the jumper and Nikola Milutinov failed to bank the putback attempt at the buzzer.
“The game was decided in the last possession, in which Williams-Goss missed the shot, so that means Olympiacos also had the possibility to win the game. I believe that we came to this point of the game, a critical moment, that they scored two three-point shots in the final seconds, one by Williams-Goss and that, an incredible shot by Papanikolaou, but this is the beauty of basketball“, added Obradovic. “In our last possession, offensively, we didn’t play so good, even when it was a correct shot by Nikola Kalinic“.
Olympiacos coach David Blatt agreed: “Sometimes games come down to one or two plays, and unfortunately for us, they made one more than we did. That was the difference in the game. Little things make the difference and tonight, very few, but little things did make the difference. The season is long and we have to stay together as a unit and to improve on those little things that come up in games like this in our favor, and I believe that we will.”
Thus Fenerbahce improved to 6 – 1 while Olympiacos dropped to 3 – 4 after suffering its third loss in a row.
Papanikolaou scored a team-high 18 points (all in the second half) and grabbed four boards for 25 PIR while Giorgos Printezis posted a double-double of 10 points and 10 rebounds in the 36:35 minutes he spent on the floor. Williams-Goss added 13 points and five dimes.
Apart from Sloukas, Nikola Kalinic had 16 points and Melih Mahmutoglu 12 for Fener.