Nikos Papadogiannis saw the exhausted Olympiakos bursting with freshness against Baskonia, as if they were starting the season today.
Olympiakos’ match against Baskonia coincided with the National team’s match in London, but the “red and white” played as if they wanted to send the viewers to the next channel. The “reds” left the club like mad and the pack was filed away before it even got underway.: 43-27 midway through the second period.
Unfortunately for her “official sweetheart”it was not possible to send the leader Papanikolaou and the useless, as it turned out, Larentzakis and Walkup to England. Not even Nikos Rogavopoulos.
Tonight, Olympiacos was the -already very good- Olympiacos of 2023-24, strengthened by the according to Giorgos Bartzokas (and according to everyone else) “hell of a player” Evan Fournier. Alec Peters pulled on his last year’s boots without straining and stepped up sweat-soaked after 30 minutes, Nigel Williams-Goss reminded how important it is to have a walk-on-worthy back-up, the carousel of quality centers decimated Baskonia’s anemic attack line and everything became a breeze once Marcus Howard’s cough stopped.
The gifted scorer of the Spanish team scored 10 points in the evening, earned and 2-3 fouls that sent Walkup to the bench, made the rushers look for his individual records, but he was quickly trapped and disappeared. Williams-Goss and Papanikolaou deserve credit for neutralizing it.
The “red and whites” played the defense that elevated them to the pantheon of European superpowers, but they also exceeded 90 points, although they played without Vezenkov and Dorsey, two players born to score. If Kostas Papanikolaou chased the layup in the final period, when everything was decided, the counter would have stopped at 94 for the fourth straight game.
After the 79-69 win over Real in Faliro, one 90 points follows another. The winning streak of Olympiakos after the initial 2-3 has hopefully reached the number “6” and the only back that can be seen on the horizon is that of Saras. Next Thursday, Giorgos Bartzokas has an appointment with Zelikos Obradovics in the city of the final four and the next one with … Vasilis Spanoulis next to the marinas of Monte Carlo. By then Vezenkov may have returned as well.
Except for Peters, who worked overtime, there was no Olympiakos player who caught the 27 minutes of participation. And it’s no small gain to save energy, now that it’s winter. As Giorgos Bozikas rightly pointed out, never before have teams been asked to play so many matches in the opening 50 days of the season. Despite the injuries that have plagued them, the Piraeus team looks as fresh as if they were setting up at the starting line just now.
Faliro’s Baskonia was a low hurdle, but the performance of the “red and whites” made it look worse and more harmless than it actually is. The near miss of the match against Villeurbanne became an inexpensive lesson. Even from the break, Bartzokas praised his players for the seriousness and concentration they showed.
The traditional 25 assists had on the other end only 9 errors (the most when the match was decided), the 14 lost defensive rebounds cost nothing, while the methodical way in which the team operated made heroes of everyone with computer precision.
How many times did the in-form Milutinov, Peters and Fale score from the ruck against a shorter opponent? When Fournier felt his hands get cold, he began to feed the hungry. The Frenchman scored 12 of his 15 points in the first period, but his action hurt the Basques until the end.
With the possible exception of Thomas Walkupwho saw the critical period stuck on the bench due to fouls, there was no other “red and white” player who did not stand out. Vassilis Toliopoulos was also very good. Oops, sorry, that came from the next screen.
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