Trey Woodbury scored 8 of his game-high 25 points in the fourth quarter to keep the Greek side's faint playoff hopes alive
Aris downs Lietkabelis, 81-66, to record first home win this season
Game Report
3 Mins read
Regular Season
Round 12 of 18
Group B
w
l
l
l
l
w
l
w
l
l
Aris Midea Thessaloniki will be hoping that Tuesday night's 81-66 triumph over 7Bet-Lietkabelis Panevezys kickstarts its season, with Ioannis Kastritis's men winning at Nick Galis Hall for the first time this season. The legendary Greek outfit is now 3-9 in Group B, while Lietkabelis – which has a game in hand – is 3-8.
Trey Woodbury was Aris's star on the offensive end, netting 25 points. The hosts also had Sharife Cooper (12 points), D'Moi Hodge (11), and Landers Nolley (10) finish in double figures. Martynas Varnas was Lietkabelis's leading scorer with 11, while Dovis Bickauskis and Georgios Kalaitzakis had 10 apiece.
Game Videos
There was little to separate the two teams in the early going, but Woodbury scored Aris’s first 5 points to give the hosts an early 5-4 edge. Kalaitzakis, playing back in his native Greece, also had a strong start to the game, and his layup four minutes in saw him move to 6 points and give Lietkabelis a 5-11 lead. Woodbury scored 6 points in the final 4:11 minutes of the quarter to move to 11 overall, but Bickauskis’s tough layup made it 18-19 after 10 minutes.
The largest lead either team had in the second quarter was two points as the chess match continued; one score for Aris would be followed by one for Lietkabelis, and vice versa. It looked like they were going to head into the halftime break with the score tied at 32-32, but Bickauskis’s finger-roll layup on the fast break ensured it was 32-34 after the first two quarters.
Aris had a strong start to the third, with Woodbury moving to 17 points with a layup high off the glass to level it at 34-34 before Sharife Cooper reeled off 5 straight points to give the hosts a 39-34 advantage. Lietkabelis responded with two quick threes by Varnas and Danielius Lavrinovicius to retake the lead, 39-40. The lead kept changing hands the rest of the way, but after D’Moi Hodge gave Aris a four-point advantage, 56-52, in the closing stages, Bickauskis had a perfect trip to the line to make it 56-54 after 30 minutes.
Lietkabelis scored the first 4 points of the final frame, but things quickly went south for the visitors. In response to a Maldunas dunk, Roberts netted 4 straight points, Cooper added a three-point play, Woodbury scored a layup, and Roberts had another big dunk to give Aris a 69-60 lead with 4:48 minutes remaining. Varnas’s mid-range make made things interesting at 69-62, but back-to-back three-pointers by Woodbury all but put the game to bed at 75-62, with the Aris guard doing the Steph Curry sleeping celebration after the second. The hosts then coasted towards an eventual 81-66 victory.
