The new head coach of Aris, David Blatt, saw his new team win Kavala 71-58 (half-time: 27-26) at Alexandrio Melathro for Match Day 12 of the Hellenic Championships 2009-2010. With the American-Israeli coach sitting at the VIP grandstand, along with the president Yannis Damianidis, the “yellows” did their duty, under the guidance of interim coach Dimitris Priftis. Although they didn’t play well in the first half, they showed concentration in the second part and got the victory. Andrew Betts (18) and Jeremy Richardson (16) were the top scorers.
Kavala started better, but after minute 4 Aris improved in defense and took the lead. Although they missed too many shots from close distance, they finished the first period up by 3 (14-11) thanks to a 5-0 run in the last 4:51.
The second quarter was quite similar, since the “yellows” weren’t effective in attack and couldn’t take advantage of keeping a clean sheet for a total of 7:32 in a row. When Kavala found the way to score, they were able to have a 0-8 run and take the lead (16-19). They even extended it to 6 (18-24, 3:33 before half-time), but at that moment Aris had their own 7-0 run and ended well the first half (27-26).
In the beginning of the second half, the home team finally did what everybody expected to: Another 7-0 run help them build an important lead (38-30) and later on they raised it to 11 (44-33, 3:47 before the end of the period). Within the third quarter Aris scored 26, just one point short of the 27 points they had in the whole first half.
The lead extended even more, to 13 points (56-43), in the first quarter and although Kavala made a last effort reducing it to 4 (62-58 at 35’), Aris didn’t let them score any more in the remaining time, thus recovering the 13-point lead before the final buzzer (71-58).
Referees:Anastopoulos (Athens), Papapetrou (Katerini), Nikoloulis (Larisa).
Periods:14-11, 27-26 (half-time), 53-43, 71-58.
ARIS (Dimitris Priftis): Clark 5 (1), Miles 8, Papanikolaou, Betts 18, Richardson 16 (2), Chatzivrettas 5 (1), Dikoudis 6, Skordilis 4, Paunic 9 (3), Kakiouzis.
KAVALA (Vaggelis Alexandris): Kyritsis 4, Stefanidis, Aggelopoulos 3 (1), Huff 6 (2), Collins 10 (2), Iliadis, Palacio 2, Rajcevic 15 (2), Sigounas, Ceranic 4, Gustas 14 (3).
Photos: Megapress (www.megapress.gr)
