Aris was defeated by 14 points (78-64, half-time score: 42-32) in Piraeus, in the 1st leg of the Hellenic Cup semifinals, against Olympiacos, and will have to win by a larger margin in the 2nd leg, which will be held in Thessaloniki in four weeks’ time. The “yellows” could have had a better result, but they paid high price for their errors in the last minutes, during which the local team raised the difference from 4 to 14 points, thus gaining an important advantage ahead of the 2nd leg.
Aris was better in the first period, partly thanks to a 2-3 zone defense, and although Olympiacos tried to take command of the game after minute 5, the visitors scored 7 in a row and made it 12-15, 2:40 before the end of the quarter. With the help of Skordilis in attack (6 points within a few minutes), they got a 4-point advantage (15-19), but Panagiotis Yannakis’s team managed to make it 20-19 by the end of the period.
The second one didn’t start nearly as good for Aris, which had trouble in organizing the game and had poor offensive choices. Subsequently, the Piraeus club scored 10 points in a row and got away in the scoreboard (30-21, at 6:40 before half-time). They kept pushing and just a few minutes later, they got a double-digit margin (34-23). At half-time they were up by 10, thanks to 17/22 two-point shots, while the “yellows” had only 1 out of 12 three-point shots.
Schortsanitis was unstoppable in the beginning of the third quarter and scored all 11 points of Olympiacos between 20’ and 25’, giving his team the opportunity to get away by 15 points (47-32). Nevertheless, Dixon was once more effective in shots from any range and led the attack. Aris trimmed down the difference (51-43 at 24’) and their crescendo went on with a 0-6 streak, cutting the margin down to just 4 points (53-49, with 4:30 remaining for the end of the third period). However, in the following minutes the “yellows” weren’t productive in attack and the difference climbed up to 10 points once again (60-50, 45’’ before the quarter ends).
Olympiacos raised their advantage up to 13 (64-51, 66-53) in the start of the last period, but then came Aris’s reaction. They scored 7 in a row (66-60, with 4:48 remaining) and then trimmed the difference down to 4 points (68-64, 3:30 before the end). In their next offensive plays, though, Fotis Katsikaris’s players missed four three-point shots and couldn’t get any closer. And worse than this, they lost concentration in the last couple of minutes, letting Olympiacos make a 10-0 streak (6-0 within the last 50’’) and win by a 14-point difference.
Referees:Gontas (Attica), Foufis (Thessaloniki), Afentoulidis (Attica).
Periods:20-19, 42-32 (half-time), 60-51, 78-64.
OLYMPIACOS (Panagiotis Yannakis): Papaloukas 2, Childress 4, Vujcic 5, Bourousis 15, Halperin, Kleiza 11, Mavrokefalidis 10, Vasilopoulos 2, Schortsanitis 17, Beverly 4, Teodosic 8.
ARIS (Fotis Katsikaris): Clark, Argyropoulos, Betts 3, Richardson 15 (1), Chatzivrettas, Dikoudis 1, Skordilis 6, Dixon 23 (3), Kakiouzis 6, Miles 10 (1).
Photos:Giannis Liakos / IconPress
