By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
With a perfectly well-balanced performance on both ends of court, Olympiacos crushed Unics Kazan 88 – 59 in Piraeus and increased its Euroleague victories to 7. Meanwhile, the Russian team fell to a 3 – 8 record.
The Reds saw heavy contribution by all of their players as Matt Lojeski finished with 15 points and 6 rebounds, while Erick Green added 15 points as well and grabbed 5 rebounds.
Kostas Papanikolaou added 12 plus 5 rebounds, Giorgos Printezis 11 and Vassilis Spanoulis 10 plus 4 assists.
For the losing side, Keith Langford scored 25 points (11 of them in the first half) and Latavious Williams 9.
The Reds showed their wild intentions right from the start, leading with a double score of 22 – 11 with 2 minutes left in the first quarter and forcing their opponents into making lots of turnovers. Olympiacos made the most out of these opportunities on offense, easily keeping the guests at a distance.
When coach Pashutin put his secondary squad in, Unics improved its output with Paul Stoll undertaking playmaking duties successfully. The Russian team approached 24 – 20 but through some hustle plays, Olympiacos set the foundations for a 14 – 2 partial score that established a double-digit lead for good.
Coach Sfairopoulos’ players team was receiving diverse helps by most of its players, while on the other side, Unics lacked the key helps by some of its main weapons, like Quino Colom and Art Parakhouski, who finished the first half scoreless and with zero of their classic cooperations.
The two teams returned from the locker rooms with the score 43 – 28, Olympiacos launched another fiery assault skyrocketing the difference to 24 points, 54 – 30 in almost the blink of an eye. Even though more Unics players entered their team’s offensive equation, the hosts didn’t have a problem increasing their advantage further, even with a strong rotation implemented and all players getting generous playing time. The rest of the match was simply a standard procedure since nothing could change the fate of the game in what ended being the biggest defeat in Unics Kazan’s Euroleague history.