Olympiacos stepped on the gas in the final and defeated the fighting AEK

Play as… Olympic in the fourth and final period and “cleaned” her AEK Bettson BC at the Peace and Friendship Stadium!

His team Giorgos Bartzokas, found it dark for almost 30 minutes against the fighting “Union”, however, thanks to an excellent fourth quarter (24-10), took the victory with final 89-70 at Faleri Stadium.

With Vezenkov, Walkup and Vildosa out, the Alec Peters and Kostas Papanikolaou they were the ones who came forward, with the former finishing the match with 20 points and 6 rebounds and the captain of Piraeus with 15 points and 6 rebounds. Gos (14 points, 3 assists), Larentzakis (13 points) and Miloutinov (9 points, 11 points) followed closely. As for him Evan Fournier, absent after nearly 22 minutes of action, going 0/5 from 3-point range.

For the “yellow and black”, who are now turning their attention to the crucial match with Prometheus for the “16” phase of the BCL, the following stood out Hunter Hale (14 points), Gray (10 points, 5 points) and Golden (10 points, 3 points, 4 assists).

The match:

The start of the match was quite good, with both teams exchanging points in the first minute for 5-4. However, his absences Olympiakoucombined with the ease with which his players entered the court, allowed the AEK to impose her own pace on the match. Playing with tremendous concentration, focus and clear-mindedness on defense and offense, the “Union” with beautiful offense went on an 11-0 run – six points by Gray – to 15-5 in the 6th minute!

The “red and whites”, who started with only 1/11 accurate shots, found the way to the “yellow and black” basket after almost 5 minutes with the goal-foul of Mitrou-Long (8-15) in the 7th minute, before the Habs , Larentzakis and Skordilis form the 10-19 a little later. The visitors continued to find solutions on the front of the floor, even reaching +12 (12-24) on a three-pointer by Hale, with Peters responding with the same “coin” for the 17-24 of the period.

With acquired speed, Dragan Sakota’s team entered the second quarterwhere with five shots by Hale and a two-pointer by Skordilis, he did 31-17 in the first two minutes, with +14 being the biggest difference of the match! The first basket of the “red and whites” in the period came from Peters, in their first essentially complete and organized attack of the game, with Papanikolaou taking the baton and with two three-pointers, plus two two-pointers from Milutinov and Peters, reducing to 29-35 in the 15th minute. With their aggressive defense, the hosts managed to take AEK out of rhythm, which resulted in them slowly “gnawing” the difference to 32-39 at 17′. Somewhere there, his team’s counterattack began Giorgos Bartzokas, which thanks to good defenses and versatility on offense, went on an unanswered 12-0 run, going to locker room with a 44-39 advantage.

At its beginnings third period, the hosts moved the ball well on three occasions, finding respective baskets from Goss, Milutinov and Peters for 51-41, with the latter writing shortly after the 54-44 with an indirect three-pointer. Then, a quick burst by AEK with baskets by Golden, Bryce and Gray cut the deficit to 4 and 54-50 at 25, before Goss’ indirect 3-pointer and nice hooks by Nezipoglu and Golden 57-54 a minute later.

The “red and whites” answered with two back-to-back three-pointers by Dorsey and Goss, they wrote 63-56, with the “yellow-blacks” again having an answer and reducing it to 63-60, with Milutinov at the end of the period to forms the 65-60 with an emphatic nailing at the end of time!

In fourth and final period, Piraeus drastically improved their image at the back of the floor, leading AEK to several mistakes and difficult shots. With Larentzakis scoring four points and Papanikolaou and Goss scoring two each, the “red and white” went for the first time at +13 and 73-60 at 34′. After almost five minutes of play in the quarter, the “Union” found its first points with the shots of Kouseloglou, at the time when Olympiacos reacted with the three-pointers of Larentzakis and Mitrou-Long for 79-62 in the 35th minute. Somehow, the last part of the match took on a procedural character, with the hosts reaching victory with final 89-70.

The quarters: 17-24, 44-39, 65-60, 89-70.

See here the statistics of the match.