By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Lorenzo Brown scored 34 points, Billy Baron added 17, and Crvena Zvezda defended its home court against Olympiacos.
The Serbs got a crucial victory (88-81) and are now tied with the Greeks, Valencia Basket, Bayern Munich, and KIROLBET Baskonia Vitoria Gasteiz at a 6-9 record, two wins away from the eighth position.
The 34 points were a EuroLeague personal best for Brown.
Baron also tied his personal best, and as he said after the final buzzer, he had extra motivation to perform: “The most important thing is that I had my son in the gym for the first time. So I guess I had to knock down some shots for him.”
The game practically decided in the third period, in which the partial score was 23-11 for the hosts. Zvezda got momentum, and Olympiacos couldn’t get close after that, despite a great start in the game.
Olympiacos led even by 15 and got a solid 50-40 halftime lead, but behind Brown and Baron, Crvena Zvezda came back in the second half. The score was 63-61 in favor of the hosts at the end of the third period, and after an 8-2 run at the start of the last quarter, Zvezda was up by eight points (71-63). The Greeks couldn’t react after that.
Brandon Paul scored 21 points for Olympiacos, Nikola Milutinov had 15 and 11 rebounds.
Still, it was far from enough, especially since Zvezda finished the night with 54,5% in threes (12/22).
“It was like a double win”
For Zvezda coach Dragan Sakota, the result was more than important: “It was like a double win because we were so far down and nobody expected us to come back. Normally if Olympiacos plays like that in the first half we would not have the solutions. In the second half, we showed some of our character and I think we deserved to win this game.”
On the other side, coach Kestutis Kemzura admitted that the hosts were better in the second half: “Lorenzo Brown had a great night, and Billy Baron made some tough shots, but Crvena Zvezda scored too many easy baskets. We let them score 88 points, so we had to be really good on the offensive end. They had eight more possessions because of the turnovers, and they got more offensive rebounds. That is a lot in a game like this. At some point, we lost control. In this physical game, we not only lost control, but we also lost our minds. We lost control of the game, we lost control of ourselves. And we had to pay the price. Congratulations to Crvena Zvezda.”