Olympiacos beat the team from Vitoria (86-78) and ends up leading the regular season
MADRID, 13 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Cazoo Baskonia lost this Thursday 86-78 at Olympiacos, despite the 29 points scored by American point guard Markus Howard, thus conditioning their presence in the Euroleague quarterfinal playoff, to which should expect a defeat for Zalgiris on their visit to Bayern Munich.
After this negative harvest in Piraeus, the Baskonia team closed the regular season with a record of 18 wins and 16 losses. For its part, Olympiacos ended this phase of the season as the leader thanks to its 24 wins and 10 losses.
Joan Peñarroya’s pupils conceded a 10-2 start, perhaps somewhat overwhelmed by the stage, and were in tow throughout the first quarter. Howard then stretched, helped by his teammates Rokas Giedraitis and Maik Kotsar, to get within a point of distance (21-20) before the local team gave another rush.
Thus, Shaquielle McKissic and Kostas Sloukas stood out together with Sasha Vezenkov to put the +15 (45-30) before the break, eclipsing the offensive task of a Howard who at times had been reminiscent of his best midterm version. After a couple of months without too much brilliance, the New Jersey base seemed with the ‘batteries’ on and Baskonia appreciated it.
Returning from the locker room, the game slowed down as Olympiacos calmly managed their lead. Entrusted once again to Howard, author of a 3+1 when the stands of the Estadio de la Paz y la Amistad were getting worse, the team from Vitoria did not give up and reduced the deficit to 53-49.
ONLY WITH HOWARD NOT ENOUGH
However, it was a mirage due to the push of an Olympiacos that made the ‘rubber’ on the scoreboard until concluding the third period at 66-55. With two consecutive triples as soon as the fourth quarter began, by the work of Kostas Papanikolaou and Alec Peters, the team coached by Georgios Bartzokas put victory on track.
Baskonia barely fell below -10 again in the remainder of the clock (80-73), until they ended up defeated and thereby mortgaging their future in the highest competition. To be in the quarterfinal tie, those from Peñarroya will be attentive to what Zalgiris does this Friday (8:30 p.m.) (balance of 18-15) at the Audi Dome in Munich.
Kaunas is precisely the city that awaits on the horizon for the Final Four for the title, so the cabal for Zalgiris is now clear: if they beat Bayern, they will stay alive in the competition and leave Baskonia in the gutter, which throughout the regular league has remained in the top eight of the league table.
DATASHEET.
–RESULT: OLIMPIACOS, 86 – CAZOO BASKONIA, 78 (45-33, at halftime).
–EQUIPMENT.
OLYMPICS: Walkup (-), Canaan (3), Papanikolaou (16), Vezenkov (23) and Fall (2) –starting quintet–; Lountzis (-), Larentzakis (5), Sloukas (15), Bolomboy (3), Peters (5), Black (5) and McKissic (9).
CAZOO BASCONY: Thompson (11), Marinkovic (9), Giedraitis (13), Hommes (-) and Kotsar (6) –starting quintet–; Howard (29), Heidegger (2), Ten (-), Enoch (2), Costello (5) and Kurucs (1).
— PARTIALS: 19-11, 26-22, 21-22 and 20-23.
–REFEREE: Radovic, Vilius and Shemmesh. Without eliminated.
–PAVILLION: Stadium of Peace and Friendship, 10,334 spectators