Undefeated at the top
The curtain of the league first round went down with Olympiacos being the unofficial winter champion, since being the only undefeated team at the top of the ranking. The “reds” had another quiet afternoon against Iraklis and got the victory with an 88-58 score having a 13/13 record.
Dusan Ivkovic’ players controlled the game from the beginning playing excellent defense and with Jotam Halperin and Zoran Erceg leading had no problem reaching victory against Iraklis.
Τhe quarters: 28-14, 44-26, 61-39, 88-58
Per quarter: 28-14, 16-12, 17-13, 27-19.
Οlympiacos (Ivkovic): Papaloukas 6, Spanoulis 15(1), Vassilopoulos, Bourousis 4, Pelekanos 11(3), Μavrokefalides 12, Halperin 17(3), Glyniadakis, Nielsen 6, Papanikolaou 6, Erceg 11(1), Katsivelis.
Iraklis (Κalafatakis): Petalotis, Boyldin 9(1), Demertzis 1, Papanikolopoulos 8, Αngelakopoulos, Jazvin 12, Petrovic 7, Koprivica 2, Despos, Iliadis 7, Eiutavicius 2, Lampropoulos 10(1).
DUSAN IVKOVIC: Iraklis tried to control the rhythm in the beginning. We tried on our turn to show readiness in view of a very difficult game. In a way, I helped lose rhythm in the second quarter, since I tried some things we haven’t even incorporated at practice. We wanted Panagiotis to get minutes, but we used him with two more power forwards…” At that point cheers were heard from Karaiskaki and Ivkovic just went commenting: Olympiacos scored a third goal.
We did well in the first round of the League and the qualifying round of the Euroleague. We have had good results and we need to continue. We come from a huge victory against Panathinaikos and from now on, we want our fans by our side and the fans to have a good presence. It’s a tough effort. We continue and on Tuesday will say more about the game against Fenerbahce.
Jamon Gordon needs to concentrate, I have talked to him and I’ll be talking to him again, because he started well, but he has lot focus. The other three players are having some minor injury problems, but nothing serious. Let’s forget about OAKA. I told the guys in the locker rooms, we had better communication at OAKA with not even one of our fans by our side. The game against Fenerbahce is a great one and we need the support of our fans. We don’t want it to turn into a circus.
JOTAM HALPERIN: We respect all of our opponents and that’s what we have done today. The best thing is that on Thursday we are finally going to have the fans with us. It’s an important game for us and we need them.
ΜΑTT NIELSEN: We played for 40 minutes showing character. We come from a big game and we entered another big one. The thing was to remain focused and it’s pleasant that we came out this way. I’m happy to be back.
GIORGOS KALAFATAKIS: Miracles cannot happen all the time. The game cannot be criticized upon, but I’m really upset but what we showed. We had no will to play and we did not enjoy it. We did nothing right. We cannot compare to Olympiacos, but we had no will. Our minds had crossed over the word Olympiacos, and this shouldn’t be happening. We have 13 finals ahead of us. Good luck to Olympiacos in both Greece and Europe.