Olympiacos won the first battle

By Lefteris Moutis/ moutis@eurohoops.net

For the first time since the nineties Olympiacos played at the home court of Panathinaikos without being the underdog. The Reds weren’t exactly the favorites, but the more experienced and more solid unit and proved it with a 64-60 win.

Olympiacos had the initiative almost from the start, got a 14 points lead (40-26) just before the end of the first half and knew what to do in the last quarter, when the Greens tried to come back in the game. Vasilis Spanoulis scored 16 points in the first half for the guests and finished with 19 points and five assists. Stratos Peperoglou who left last summer the Greens for Olympiacos added 12 points. “We have a team with motive and players with ego”, said after the game coach Giorgos Bartzokas.

Dimitris Diamantidis had also 19 points, but he didn’t have any real help from his teammates. As Sofoklis Shortsanitis said after the game: “Diamantidis and Tsartsaris showed us the way, but we didn’t follow their lead”. Big Sofo scored just 6 points and stayed on the court for 11 minutes.

After this result, Olympiacos is the big favorite to finish on top of the standings after the end of the regular season, even if it’s just the second gameday of the Greek league. Kolossos and Panionios are the other two teams with a perfect 2-0 record. Here are the results of the second gameday with full stats.

 Heba A1 2012-2013 – 2nd Day