The Reds scored a season-high 95 points in the victory
'Humble' Olympiacos clicked on offense to thrash Barcelona
Ten teams had produced more points per game than Olympiacos Piraeus coming into the 2024-25 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Round 7 clash against FC Barcelona. The Greek side’s defense may have averaged a league fourth-best 77.0 points conceded, but its offense produced just over 80 points (80.3) across the first six games of the season. Yet, on Thursday night everything clicked for the Reds on the offensive end, with the hosts netting a season-high 95 points to demolish Barcelona’s defense.
Olympiacos scored over 20 points and outscored the visitors in each of the four quarters (21-17, 23-19, 21-14, 30-24). Rigid defense limited the EuroLeague’s second-best offense (87.7) to just 74 points, 8 of which were scored in the last minute of the game when Olympiacos had practically finished it off. Yet, this time the hosts also delivered on offense, with various protagonists stepping up at different moments of the game to allow their team to dictate the tempo.
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Sasha Vezenkov scored 7 of Olympiacos’s 21 points in the first quarter and ended the game with 18 points. Olympiacos’s momentum shifter, Shaquielle McKissic, came off the bench to net 10 points in his first 5 minutes on the court. Then, Tyler Dorsey came to the fore in the last 4 minutes of the second quarter, scoring 8 points including a buzzer-beating triple to secure a 44-36 lead at the break.
In the third quarter, it was Evan Fournier’s turn to take up the baton on offense, scoring 10 points to help Olympiacos pull away and take a 65-50 cushion into the closing quarter. Fournier recorded a game-high 19 points in just 16 minutes on the court, while Dorsey, who didn’t play a single minute in the previous round against Real Madrid, added 12 points.
Meanwhile, Nikola Milutinov who received important playing time for the first time since recovering from injury, chipped in with 12 points and 8 rebounds, 6 of which were offensive boards.
With its wins over the two Spanish sides, Olympiacos bounced back after tough losses to Anadolu Efes Istanbul, FC Bayern Munich and Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens.
“It was a hard week,” Vezenkov told EuroLeague TV after the game. “We lost two games in the EuroLeague, one from Panathinaikos [in the league]. We wanted to come back. We did that in the perfect way, but we’ve just started. We won [against] the team that’s first in the league. We are happy but humble. We’ll keep working and everything will be okay.”
Coming up next week is the highly-anticipated Greek derby, with Olympiacos visiting Panathinaikos in Round 8. It’s true that a derby is a different animal, but Olympiacos now has something to build on after completing a perfect two-round week at home.