The first-year center took over in the fourth quarter at Crvena Zvezda
Olympiacos rode Moses Wright's monster fourth-quarter in key win
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Regular Season
Round 33 of 34
Group Regular Season
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Olympiacos Piraeus had to fight hard, but in the end it pulled out an 86-89 road win over Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade.
For the second consecutive week, Olympiacos pulled out a dramatic win at Belgrade Arena, with this one being enough to wrap up a top-six spot in the standings, thus guaranteeing the Reds' place in the EuroLeague Playoffs.
And this time, Olympiacos's hero was backup center Moses Wright, who scored 16 of his game-high 20 points in the fourth quarter.
Moses Wright took over
Zvezda entered the fourth quarter with its only lead of the night, 64-63, but Wright opened the fourth with a put-back dunk, then soon after strung together 8 points to put Olympiacos 69-75 ahead.
As the game headed towards its conclusion, Wright kept getting to the free-throw line as Zvezda had no answers for how to stop him under the rims. Wright, however, missed 3-of-4 free throws which helped Zvezda tie the game at 84-84 with 46 seconds left.
But on the ensuing possession, as the shot-clock was ticking away, Wright was seemingly not dwelling on those missed free throws as he knocked down a triple, his only behind-the-arc attempt of the night, to give Olympiacos an 84-87 lead it would never relinquish.
After the game, when asked for his thoughts on becoming Olympiacos's hero, Wright admitted his thoughts could have gone in a totally different direction.
"[Kostas] Papanikolaou was saying how bad I did rebounding and how more tentative I need to be to box out to not give the other team more possessions," Wright said.
"Then I was thinking about how [Giannoulis] Larentzakis called me soft going into the second half. Those comments came from the vets on the team. I am a little bit proud, but you can always improve."
That triple from Wright was the Reds' 13th of the night and by a ninth different player. However, that was just enough for Olympiacos on the night, with head coach Georgios Bartzokas unhappy with his team's performance afterward.
"How [Zvezda] played the game, how many rebounds they got, how many 50-50 balls they took, they wanted the match desperately," Bartzokas noted.
"It is a lesson for us. Maybe deep inside in their minds, some of our players thought that [Zvezda] is without any interest in the game. It was not like that, it was one of the toughest games of the season."
What should have made the Olympiacos boss happy was his team's 27 assists. Papanikolaou had 6 dimes, as did Nigel Williams-Goss and Moustapha Fall, while Thomas Walkup had 5 assists to his name.
It was the first time this season – and just the 12th time since the 2007-08 season – that four different players on the same team had at least 5 assists.
It helped Olympiacos learn a lesson in the best possible way – with a victory, its 21st of the season and one that got the team over the line in the playoff battle. The Reds have another race to complete next week, however, as they now look to wrap up home-court advantage against another playoff-qualified team in Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul.