Olimpia had another great night on its way to the fifth consecutive EuroLeague wins that improved the overall record to 14-7. Olympiacos was defeated 90-79 after a tough battle, as expected. “For the majority of the game we defended well and moved the ball accurately. We had 19 assists and only seven turnovers. We complicated our life ourselves in the third quarter when our defense was not adequate on their shooters, maybe we expected them to shoot with the same low percentages they had in the first half, but they have great shooters and when they started hitting threes our close-outs were slow and we got nervous. They came back,” Coach Ettore Messina pointed out. Olimpia led by as many as 18 points in the first half, but Olympiacos closed the second quarter on a 8-0 run and managed to finish the half down by ten. The rally was completed in the third quarter, 60-60, then it became a battle, but Olimpia always stayed on top and finished on a great note, at both ends of the floor. Kevin Punter scored 13 points in the last quarter, Malcolm Delaney hit a huge three to beat the clock and defensively Kyle Hines made a couple of great stops to seal the win by 11 points, the same margin that allowed Olympiacos to win the first leg in Athens. “Our effort in the fourth quarter was tremendous, the defense stepped up, it was a great collective effort as a team,” Messina added.

Kevin Punter had a career-high 27 points, but also five assists over 33 minutes of playing time. “We kept our composure at the end. They cut it to two points and we went back to what was working. We kept our composure and were extra focused,” Punter said. With no Shavon Shields and no Jeff Brooks, Olimpia was a little short-handed in the front-court, used Micov and Datome together many times, but hit ten threes and with ball movement and dribble drives was able to gain 29 trips to the free-throw line making 24 attempts. Malcolm Delaney had 16 points, went 10-for-11 from the line and added five assists, while Sergio Rodriguez scored 14 points and Gigi Datome 12.

Datome made two threes and was able to make his three-point basket number 300 for his career in another efficient night for him. “Micov and Roll were part of the rotation, but they are not in great shape, they’ll improve over time, we’ll see if we can get Shields back for Thursday,” Messina said.