Vassilis Spanoulis stars as Olympiacos edge out Gescrap BB 88-81: Euroleague Recap
Olympiacos collected their third and much needed win of the Turkish Airlines Euroleague 2011 by downing Gescrap BB 88-81, courtesy of Vassilis Spanoulis, who erupted with his Euroleague career-high 29 points.
It was an exciting game and both teams were in the run until the very last minutes. However with nearly five minutes to go, Vassilis scored 5 crucial points to take the game away from BB.
Even Gescrap’s coach, Fotios Katsikaris admitted Vassilis brilliance. Praising the star, he highlighting the reasons for loss;
"We played a game that was decided by the talent and the personality of Vassilis Spanoulis and by the advantage and the explosiveness of Kyle Hines, when he is playing at the center position. We tried to sop both of them but it
didn't work. To be honest, I am not complaining about our team defense. Spanoulis made some big shots and he was unstoppable. From our side, in offense, we didn't execute as was needed in a game which was up tempo and high scoring”
Kyle’s name was mentioned because he played an important part in the win by scoring 18 points on an accurate 8 for 9 from the arc. Pero Antic also finished with 13 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists.
For Gescrap, Alex Mumbru was the top scorer with 17 points. Marko Banic added 15 while Janis Blums sealed 14 points.
Pero fired in back to back three pointers early and was complemented by an 11-2 surge midway through the first quarter to put Olympiacos in a commanding position, 19-9.
Janis, Banic and D’OR Fischer jumped to the rescue though and scored quickly in next few minutes to cut the deficit to only 2 points 24-22 with just a minute remaining in the frame. Kostas Papanikolaou however scored a trey in
the dying seconds to make it 27-22 in the favor of Olympiacos as the teams headed into the second quarter.
BB fought back in the second period and not only managed to cut the lead, they got ahead in the 6th minute courtesy of a three by Janis. The momentum kept shifting in the minutes that followed, however Olympiacos managed
to carve out a 45-42 lead at halftime.
The first half of the third quarter was exact replica of the second one as Gescrap came from behind to go ahead. But this time, they did not let the lead escape and managed to keep it till the end. They were ahead by 3 points 61-58,
but a dunk by Hines in the final few seconds ended the quarter at 61-60.
A three from Kostas increased BB’s lead to 64-60 early however after that, it was all about Vassilis as he scored 12 points in the quarter to lead his team to a victory.
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