Olympiakos-Erythros Asteras: Duel of red and white in SEF

Olympic and Red Star face off tonight (21:15, Novasports 4, News Bulletin 247), at SEF for 9th matchday of the Euroleague!

Coming off the back of their 79-74 win over Maccabi Tel Aviv in neutral Belgrade earlier in the day, Piraeus will be looking for a second straight positive result to get to the coveted 2/2 in the current… devil week, overcoming their fair share of problems.

In the closed-door match against “Alexander Nikolic”, the “red and whites” put behind them the difficulties they faced, finally reaching victory with their protagonists Peters (13p, 8 reb.) and Walkup (13 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists). Now, they want to put behind them the two successive defeats against Fenerbahce (away) and Baskonia (in), and celebrate their fifth victory in this year’s Euroleague.

Giorgos Bartzokas will not have them available for another game Shaquille McKissick and Nikola Milutinovwhile he was also left out Nigel Williams-Gosswho suffered a concussion and will be sidelined for almost a month.

On the other hand, Mr Red Star comes to tonight’s match with an elevated mentality, after last Tuesday (14/11) he destroyed Fenerbahce with an emphatic 87-56 in the packed “Stark Arena” in Belgrade! This was his third win in this year’s EuroLeague, he is yet to get a double, leaving Zalgiris, Virtus Bologna, Partizan and Barcelona with his head down.

As far as racing is concerned, Yannis Sfeiropouloswho on October 22 of last year replaced Ivanovic in the technical leadership of the Serbians, cannot count on the services of the injured Napier, Dos Santos, Hanga, Simonovich and Lazic.

In last year’s matches between the two teams, Red Star celebrated both in Piraeus, where they won 90-86, and in Belgrade, where they won 87-79.

The referees of tonight’s match will be Olegs Latishevs (Latvia), Thomas Travitsky (Poland) and Josip Radojkovic (Croatian).