Good start is not enough in Piraeus 38
Zalgiris Kaunas was leading in the first half, but Olympiacos Piraeus came back for 83-68 home victory in the Round 4 EuroLeague battle.
Two days after losing in overtime to FC Barcelona, Olympiacos fell behind by 14 points midway through the second quarter. But the Reds tied the game in the third quarter en route to a 27-10 period and ended up improving their record to 3-1. Kostas Sloukas paced four Olympiacos players in double figures with 17 points while Giannoulis Larentzakis scored 13 points, Sasha Vezenkov 12 and Kostas Papanikolaou had 10.
Zalgiris remained winless at 0-4 despite Emmanual Mudiay tallying 19 points with 4 assists while Arturuas Milaknis scored 14 points and Josh Nebo added 12.
Mudiay opened the game with a jumper for the guests, with Olympiacos needing more than 2 minutes to score on a three-pointer from Papanikolaou, which was followed another triple from Tyler Dorsey for a 6-5 lead. Zalgiris was working hard on defense and used the long ball as Milaknis buried 3 three-pointers in a 2-16 run for a 8-21 advantage. Olympiacos got four points back but it was 12-23 after 10 minutes.
Tyler Cavanaugh hit a long jumper as the first score of the second quarter for the guests. Sloukas did manage a three-pointer at the other end but the Zalgiris offense continued to hum, especially Mudiay with four more points for a 15-29 cushion. Olympiacos started getting hot from long range as well, as Shaquielle McKissic hit a triple and Larentzakis made two more to get the margin to 28-34. Mantas Kalnietis added a triple of his own to make it 30-39, only to see Olympiacos score the final six points to pull within 36-39 at intermission.
Zalgiris’s big lead was gone for good with Thomas Walkup’s three-pointer to even things at 39-39 to start the second half. Vezenkov followed with back-to-back triples and Olympiacos was ahead 45-43. The Reds kept pushing offensively with Dorsey and Papanikolaou draining three-pointers in an 18-4 surge to close the third quarter with a 63-49 advantage.
Mudiay’s three-point play started the fourth quarter, but the hosts were not fazed with Sloukas knocking down two more three-pointers and Larentzakis hitting another in an 11-4 surge for a 78-58 cushion. And the rest of the game was just cosmetics.
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