Olympiacos had a rather easy evening at Kaunas tonight and got the 64-71 win with Rasho Nesterovic and Milos Teodosic showing the way.
Surprisingly enough Ivkovic started the game without Spanoulis, and instead chose Lucas to strengthen his team’s defense. Olympiacos hit Zalgiris in the paint, taking advantage of Bourousis’ mobility against Marjanovic’ weak footwork. The two teams were equal most of the times with Zalgiris occasionally taking the lead, like 13-10 after a Watson’s basket. Spanoulis entrance in the game allowed the Reds to enhance their offensive game and with the Greek international scoring at will, they tied the game at 16 before going on a 0-7 run, for 16-23 at the end of the first quarter.
Olympiacos picked up from where they left and with Zalgiris unable to score for four minutes the score became 16-27. After Marjanovic re-entered the court Zalgiris managed to cut the difference down to nine, 20-29. Olympiacos managed to break Zalgiris’ zone easily and with Spanoulis on the offensive helm, Olympiacos expanded their lead to 22-34, right before two back-to-back threepointers by Keselj and Teodosic, sent the two teams for the half time break with the score at 22-40.
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Right at the beginning of second half the difference skyrocketed to 20 points for the visiting team. With Watson on the bench with four fouls, the Greek club continued to dominate the pace and made the score 26-50. Pocius tried to turn the game around and with seven unanswered points and some help by his teammates and the fans, later on the score became 36-52. Zalgiris kept pressing and managed to cut Olympiacos’ lead even further, down to eleven, 43-54. The third quarter score was finalised by Erceg who made it 43-56.
With just ten minutes to go Pocius scored the twelve of the last fourteen points of his team and Zalgiris kept trimming the margin. Olympiacos was on the verge of panicking but due to a threepointer by Erceg order was re-established. A last minute effort by Zalgiris behind baskets by Delininkaitis and Kalnietis, turned the game back on at 61-64, but Spanoulis scored a clutch threepointer and the game was pretty much over from that point on.
Zalgiris: Brown, Capin 3, Pocius 17, Kalnietis 9, Delininkaitis 9, Klimavicius 4, Jankunas 2, Kuzminskas 2, Milaknis, Marjanovic 12, Watson 6, Collins
Olympiacos: Papaloukas, Nesterovic 9, Spanoulis 17, Vasilopoulos, Bourousis 11, Keselj 3, Mavrokefalidis, Erceg 4, Teodosic 13, Halperin 3, Lucas 7
