By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Five players scored in double figures for Real Madrid that won its eighth consecutive game and 10 overall in the EuroLeague regular season by defeating Olympiacos Piraeus 93 – 77 at home, in a manner perhaps easier than what the final score shows.
Early in the third period, the Sergio Llull-less Real had taken a 27-point lead following 30 minutes of putting on a particularly strong performance, especially on the defensive end. Olympiacos, that was minus captain Vassilis Spanoulis, lacked reliable offensive solutions for the majority of the match.
In the fourth quarter, Olympiacos dropped 29 points but couldn’t cut their deficit lower than 14 points, 84 – 70. The “Blancos” reached the win without any problems.
Fabien Causeur notched 18 points in 16:49 while Anthony Randolph had 15 points and Facu Campazzo 15 points and six assists. Trey Thompkins scored 12 and Rudy Fernandez 10.
“It’s always important to win at home against a team like Olympiacos,” Causeur said to EuroLeague TV. “We know that is always a tough game. I think we played good defense, especially in the beginning. We could not score, but we were very solid on defense, especially on defensive rebounds. And when the shots started to fall, we started rolling and our offense got much better.”
Sasha Vezenkov (season-high 12 points and five rebounds in 17:22), Will Cherry (12 points) and Willie Reed (11 points) stood out from Olympiacos. The Greek side dropped to 5-8.
“Too soft”
Olympiacos head coach Kestutis Kemzura said that he was disappointed not from the defeat itself but for what he saw as a lack of effort by his players.
“First of all, congratulations to Real Madrid. They deserved to win, and I am disappointed with my team tonight not because we lost,” Kemzura said in the post-game presser. “You can win or lose, and we played against a really good team, but the way that we fought and the way that we played. We were too soft. We were not concentrated and turned over the ball too many times. We didn’t do what we said we would do, what we were going to do, our game plan. ”
Photo: EuroLeague