Day 16 Euroleague

Olympiacos - Panathinaikos

* Pascual has some pre-game plans tonight. One of them was to attack the ball in defence, and avoid Spanoulis from getting it. It took Olympiacos by surprise. Other players had to take the playmaker role at the beginning of the game, which lead to four consecutive turnovers and five minutes without a field goal. Olympiacos reacted and played as a team for Spanoulis, with players giving him screens without the ball, so he would perform as the executer in offence. That was too much of forcing it.

* Another idea from Pascual was to start the game with newly joined Gentile. He was supposed to take advantage of his size and post up Olympiacos´ smaller guards. Gentile made no points from post up, nor did he drew fouls. While in theory the idea makes sense, in reality it is not an easy task to score against Olympiacos in the paint. Especially not when Birch is on court. Panathinaikos gave up the idea after few unseccessful attempts and sent Gentile to the bench. He played just 3 minutes more in the rest of the game. KC Rivers did the post up much better than him.

* Olympiacos´defence is highly active. They constantly try to deflect the ball, seal the paint and show some great footwork. But most impressive - Olympiacos defends well without commiting cheap fouls. Panathinaikos went just 15 times to the line (mostly in the last minutes), while their arch rivals had 28 attempts from the line. That defence devastated tonight Calathes (4 points, 4 turnovers, 1 RKG). The only thing that cracks up Olympiacos´defence is super-athleticism. Luckily enough for Panathinaikos, they have the super-athlet Mike James. He kept PAO alive through the evening. The reason Panathinaikos finished 40 minutes with just 9 assists was that they based their offence game on James´(and Rivers´) one-on-one abilities.

* In the third quarter, after failing to stop James one possession after another, Sfairopoulos sent the super-athlet Waters to his debut. Well, it takes a super-athlet to stop a super-athlet: he stopped James from doing what he wants in offence. Once that happened, PAO was left without any real offensive plan. Waters was 6 minutes on the court during the third quarter. PAO scored in that period just 4 points. That was the time when Olympiacos made a run and finished the game.

* Funny: Olympiacos´best minutes were when Spanoulis went off the bench in the third quarter. Without him, the ball was passed around faster, and Panathinaikos was not able to focus defensively on one player. Olympiacos also looked better defensively without Spanoulis.

* Not just Calathes: Singelton, PAO´s other star, had a weak night. It is due to Birch, who keep destroying rival centers. Last week it was Udoh, this week it was Singelton´s turn to suffer. Sfairopoulos let him play mostly against atheltic Singelton and not against powerful Bourousis. In the fourth quarter Sfairopoulos forgot him on the bench. After Singelton buried an open three pointer, Birch was urgently called back on court. He is also a rebounding machine, being responsible of turning Olympiacos to Euroleague´s best rebound team.

* And one small remark - Nichols simply can not play as a PF against big powerful players. Printezis took him to the paint time after time.

#Euroleague #Olympiacos #Panathinaikos