Aris got very close to a huge victory in the Peace & Friendships Stadium of Piraeus, where they fought as equals against Olympiacos, but in the end lost 82-77 (half-time score 38-43), for the Game 14 of the Hellenic Championships. David Blatt’s team was magnificent and showed their true abilities, but they got no reward for their effort, just because they couldn’t score the big shots in the last minute.
Aris led until minute 4, when Olympiacos made it 11-7, but it didn’t take long for the visitors to react, thanks to their superiority in the rebounds. However, the “reds” managed to take the lead in the end of the first quarter (22-21).
Kakiouzis, who was wonderful (16 points in the first half) continued to score from any range in the start of the second periods. He scored 10 points and led his team to a 4-14 run, which gave Aris a 7-point advantage (28-35) in 16’. The match-up zone applied by David Blatt’s players gave fruit and although Olympiacos came close for a moment (34-35), the “yellows” responded with a 0-6 run (36-43, with 33’’ remaining for the half-time, thanks to a three-pointer by Paunic).
Things remained quite the same in the beginning of the second half and Aris led 41-48, but then Panagiotis Yannakis’s players improved in defence, found more opportunities to run on the fast-break and they took the lead (52-50, 4:20 before the end). More than this, they reached at “+7” (61-54), aided by the change of things in the rebounds aspect (11-3 in favor of Olympiacos in the third quarter, as opposed to 11-16 in favor of Aris in the first half).
The “reds” got their maximum lead, which was 8 points (71-63) in minute 33, but David Blatt’s team didn’t give up and managed to make a strong comeback: Richardson scored three consecutive free throws (77-75, with 2:34 remaining), and Miles made it even (77-77, with 1:19 remaining). However, in the next play Teodosic scored a three-point shot (80-77, 1:04 before the end). In the last minute, Paunic missed from outside 6.25 m, neither could Richardson score in his two final attempts, and Olympiacos got the victory.
Referees: GiorgosTanatzis,YannisFoufis,Nikos Somos.
Periods: 22-21, 38-43 (half-time), 63-56, 82-77.
OLYMPIACOS (Panagiotis Yannakis): Papaloukas 2, Penn 2, Childress 19, Vujcic 11, Teodosic 10 (2), Halperin 3, Kleiza 20 (1), Mavrokefalidis 2, Vasilopoulos 7 (1), Schortsanitis 6.
ARIS (David Blatt): Clark 2, Miles 14, Betts 12, Labovic, Richardson 13, Chatzivrettas 3 (1), Dikoudis, Skordilis, Paunic 10 (2), Kakiouzis 19 (3), Barlos 4.
Photos: IconPress / Panagiotis Tzamaros
