Day 25 Euroleague: Olympiacos - Darussafaka

* The turkish defence focused on Spanoulis at the beginning of the game. 3-4 of Darussafaka's players surrounded him whenever he had the ball. As long as Spanoulis played with Mantzaris in the back line, Olympiacos' offence game was stuck. They made their points from struggling in the paint, getting fouls. In the first 5 minutes the greek team visited the free throw line 7 times.

* Just when Spanoulis went to the bench, and Olympicaos tried their athletic back line with Green and Waters, things opened up offensively. They played faster, made points in transition and found thir rhythm.

* Darussafaka was working hard for their points. Their defence was not working well (9 assists in the first 30 minutes), and they made points out of individual skills, but that is a difficult thing to rely on against the greek defence. Olympiacos played their usuall, simple, tough man-on-man defence, with defenders in front of the ball. And they know how to defened. The first half ended up with 40 rating points advantage for the greeks, which shows how much they were able to dismantle the turkish offence.

* At the end of the second half Blatt tried to switch to zone defence, perhaps in order to take Olympiacos out of their rhythm. Despite having scoring just one three pointer until that point, Olympiacos responded with two quick threes which sent them to half time with momentum.

* So at the second half Blatt tried everything he can in order to turn the game around. He tried full court pressure to take Olympiacos out of their game. But more important, he tried his beloved defence - musking (a zone defence which turns into man-on-man). As long as Spanoulis was out on the bench, the greek team did not have enough IQ to attack this defence efficiently. They got stuck, until number 7 in red came on the court. And than Darussafaka's heroic comeback came to an end.

* Darussafaka started the last quarter playing small ball, which allowed them to run the court quickly and to make easy points (as they did in the first one). Sfairopoulos reacted after 4 minutes with his own small ball formation, which stopped the turkish team.

* Olympiacos had 63% from the 2pt range. In the second half it was around the 80%. That as a direct result of Darussafaka's defence failing (mostly in the first half) to cover up and help in certain situations.

* What the hell happened in the end of the game there between Blatt and Sfairopoulos? I thought they are going to fight.

#Euroleague #Olympiacos #Darussafaka