He became… an Olympian in the end, he escaped suicide and punished Villeurbanne!

He played with fire, but he didn’t burn against Villerban Olympiakos.

The “red and white” presented themselves problematic in SEF, they found themselves chasing the score for 38 minutes, but they managed to come back in the fourth period and finally celebrate the marginal victory with 94-92taking their fourth straight EuroLeague win and improving their record to 6-3before facing the Maccabi Tel Aviv in Belgrade on Thursday (14/11, 20:00).

Leading for Olympiakos are Vezenkov (21p), Fournier (20p) and Milutinov (13 points, 7 rebounds), while for the guests, who dropped to 2-7 after their fifth consecutive defeat, the big star was Meledonwho had a career-high 31 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists.

The match:

Olympiacos started the game with Walkup, Fournier, Papanikolaou, Vezenkov and Milutinov, while Poupe chose Malenton, Harrison, Lighty, Loverne and Ediage for his starting five, not having Paris Lee, Jackson and Azinza at his disposal.

The “red and white” led 2-0 and 4-2, while Lighty started the match with 5 straight points and Villerban with 3/3 three-pointers, taking an 11-6 lead. Fournier and Papanikolaou were also on target from long range, reducing the score to 12-13, but the visitors continued to find offensive solutions, and with Malenton reaching 7, they made it 19-14 and forced Barzokas to call his first timeout. Villerban continued… unbeaten in their three points (5/5)trailing 25-16, continued to cause problems for the Olympiakos defense, while the first period ended with Walkup shooting behind center in the final second, drawing a foul and making it 24-29 with his three-pointer.

The second quarter started with Goss, Dorsey, McKissick, Peters and Wright in the Olympiakos five, while Peters hit a three to cut the deficit to 27-29, but after that, despite improving their defense, the “red and whites” were held without a basket for 4 game minutes, allowing Villeurbanne to stay ahead 33-27. In the second half of the period, Piraeus showed again defensive weaknesses and with Lauverne scoring back-to-back points, Villeurbanne took a double-digit lead for the first time in the evening (31-43). However, in the last minutes of the first half and with Milutinov and Vildosa as the protagonists, Olympiacos came within striking distance (41-43), but in the last minute of the period, Villerban made a 7-1 run, going to the locker room with the advantage of 50-42.

The third period began with Villeurbanne continuing to find solutions offensively, but with Fal scoring seven straight points to cut it to 49-54, the visitors continued to they take advantage of the… colorless presence of Olympiakos and to score at will, creating the maximum difference in their favor in the match (+14, 49-63). With five consecutive points of the “cold” until then in the match, Vezenkov, Olympiacos reduced to 54-63 and Vildosa added 5 points of his own for 58-63, while Malendon reached 19 personal points, bringing Villerban back to the + 8 (58-66). Fournier with a three-pointer reduced it to 62-66, while Vezenkov with a basket-foul made it 65-67, Malendon and Harrison brought Villerban back to +6 (65-71), before Fournier made it 71-73 in the third period, with a crazy three-pointer on defense.

Fournier tied the game at 73-73 early in the fourth quarter, but Malendon continued to it hurts the defense of Olympiakos, making it 75-79 with his three-pointer. Villerban led again by +5 (79-84), but Vezenkov tied it at 84-84, before Walkup scored five straight points, giving Olympiakos the lead after too much time (87-86). Fournier’s big three-pointer made it 90-86, but in the final stretch of the game Walkup made a three-pointer on Malendon’s three-pointer, allowing Villeurbanne to cut it to 94-92, while Vezenkov missed two shots 5′ ‘ before the finale, with the guests not finding a basket at the end and with Olympiakos getting the very difficult victory.

The quarters: 24-29, 42-50, 71-73, 94-92

The match statistics

Live of the match from sport-fm.gr