By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Vangelis Mantzaris scored 2/2 from the free throw line in the final seconds handing Olympiacos a 69 – 67 road victory over Barcelona for Round 17 of the EuroLeague regular season.
The Blaugrana had seven seconds to tie the match or potentially win it but the opposing defense forced Tyrese Rice to take a sloppy close range shot attempt that went off target.
Olympiacos continues holding the second spot of the standings by improving its record to 12 – 5 while Barcelona remains out of the playoffs zone with 10 defeats and only seven wins.
Giorgos Printezis was the top performer for the winning side with 16 points and 9 rebounds for 20 PIR while Matt Lojeski added 11 points, 4 assists plus a key jumper near the end. Kostas Papanikolaou had a contribution of 8 points, 8 rebounds, 3 steals and some big-time defensive plays.
Peteri Kopponen led Barcelona’s scorers with 16 points, Rice finished with 15 points (albeit with 6/16 from the field) plus 5 assists and Ante Tomic with 12 points and 9 rebounds.
Both teams certainly didn’t impress with their performances, shooting poorly from the field in what was a quite close match. The hosts were the ones to hold a halftime lead, 33 – 29 but thanks to strong third quarter, coach Sfairopoulos’ players managed a 54 – 56 advantage going into the fourth period.
Yet a dunk by Joey Dorsey had changed the momentum in favor of his team, thus Barcelona began building a lead, making it 64 – 58 with 4 minutes to go. Their opponents pulled off some key baskets and didn’t only trim that deficit but entered the final stretch ahead 64 – 67 with 35 seconds left.
Koponen sank the downtown basket to tie the match but Sasa Vezenkov’s pressure on Mantzaris sent the Greek guard in the line where the match was decided.