The Hellenic Championships regular season came to an end with a home defeat for Aris, which lost 76-84 (halftime 35-39) to Maroussi for Game 26. In a match that wouldn’t affect the placing of both teams in the table, the “yellows” played without Matt Walsh, due to a minor wrist injury, but saw Andrew Betts make his comeback. David Blatt’s team, though, was already thinking about the upcoming crucial games against Olympiacos for the quarterfinal stage of the playoffs.

Most part of the game saw the two rivals go along in the score, but just before halftime the visitors made it 32-39, which was their biggest lead up to that point. In the beginning of the 3rd quarter, it was “+9” for Maroussi (39-48, with 6:24 to go) and although Aris ran a 11-0 partial score within less than two minutes (50-48) and gained a 5-point advantage (57-52), the visitors ended the period with their own 0-8 run (57-60).

The last period was well-balanced, as per the score, until 1:08 before the end, when Keys made it 76-78 thank to a rather unlikely basket. Barlos missed a three-point shot right after that, Maroussi took advantage of the free throws (76-80), Kakiouzis and Chatzivrettas couldn’t score from the arc either and Pelekanos sealed his team’s victory with a goal-foul, 8’’9 before the end.

Periods: 20-19, 35-39 (halftime), 57-60, 76-84.

Referees: Giorgos Tanatzis (Katerini), Giannis Foufis (Thessaloniki), Konstantinos Stamatopoulos (Volos).

ARIS (David Blatt): Clark 16 (3), Argyropoulos, Miles 8, Betts 8, Richardson 20 (4), Chatzivrettas 9 (1), Dikoudis, Paunic, Kakiouzis 7 (1), Barlos 8 (2).

MAROUSSI (Giorgos Bartzokas): Koubouras 6 (1), Keys 14 (4), Lucas 15 (3), Pelekanos 3, Batis 9 (3), Homan 6, Nadzfej 5 (1), Mavroidis 11, Kalathes 11 (2), Arigbabu 2, Kendall 2, Kaimakoglou.