Montepaschi Siena sensationally blew a 66-58 lead heading into the fourth quarter to lose 82-75 at home to Olympiacos.
With star guard Vassilis Spanoulis on the bench having fouled out with just over four minutes to play, Acie Law stepped up to score five points and Joey Dorsey was also a factor as he scored and blocked a certain basket from Bo McCalebb, protecting Olympiacos’ lead late on.
Georgios Printezis then hit a dagger three for the visitors with 1:32 left to comdemn the hosts to defeat and hand Olympiacos a vital game one win on the road whilst holding the Italian side to just nine fourth quarter points.
Printezis led Olympiacos with 20 points with Spanoulis scoring 15 along with Kyle Hines. David Andersen led all scorers in vain for Siena with 28 with McCalebb hitting 15, but the Macedonian star was a factor in the last quarter for the wrong reasons as not only did he get his shot blocked, but he threw a woeful pass out of bounds at crunch time and the visitors took full advantage.
Olympiacos’ coach Dusan Ivkovic was understandably happy with how his team controlled the tempo of the game plus how they defended McCalebb, but he also reminded his players to not think to much about his road win and stay focused for game two on Friday.
“We are a young team and we played with great energy,” the Serb said afterwards. “In the second part of the game, we played good defence, contained McCalebb and controlled the tempo.
Ivkovic added: “I respect Siena a lot, because we know what happened last season. I don’t think this was the most important game of the series, we got the win and the home-court advantage, but when you play this kind of competition at the top level , there is no favourite team.”
CSKA EASE TO WIN OVER BILBAO.
CSKA Moscow had little trouble in beating Gescrap Bilbao 98-71, thanks in part to a 34-11 blitz in the third quarter.
For the first ten minutes, Bilbao kept it close, they even went on a 11-0 tear to lead 18-15 midway through and only trailing by one after its end (27-26), but CSKA stepped up a gear in the second quarter, ending the half with a 19-9 run to lead 50-40 at the break.
It was the third quarter though where the Russiann giants stamped their mark on the game, back-to-back threes from Milos Teodosic extended Moscow’s lead to 68-44, and from then, Bilbao struggled to get a look-in. The visitors improved in the final quarter, winning it 20-14, but the outcome was never in doubt, especially as the hosts rested their main starting five in the last ten minutes.
Nenad Krstic led CSKA with 18 points on 7/9 shooting. Russian internation Alexey Shved hit 15. Bilbao were led by Kostas Vasiliadis, who hit 15 points.
“In the end, I am happy with the way we played,” CSKA coach Jonas Kazlauskas said. “I can’t say we played bad in the first half. The opponents were good, they were scoring on some tough shots, they were moving fast, they set very tough screens.”
