The Greek team’s dynamic duo led the charge in the wake of adversity
Olympiacos leaned on Sasha Vezenkov and Evan Fournier to beat Virtus
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Regular Season
Round 16 of 34
Group Regular Season
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Olympiacos Piraeus overcame a second-quarter collapse to subdue Virtus Segafredo Bologna 87-77 after the home team’s top performers Sasha Vezenkov and Evan Fournier produced masterclass performances against the Italian outfit.
Vezenkov engineered an enviable PIR of 38 on the back of 27 points and 10 boards, having shot 8 of 12 from the floor and 9 of 11 from the foul line, while Fournier added 20 points, 7 assists and 5 rebounds as Olympiacos bounced back from a second-quarter slump.
Having led 25-7 late in the first, the hosts lost their way and allowed Virtus to turn the matchup on its head as Marco Belinelli caught fire and facilitated a 43-46 advantage at halftime for the visiting team.
Having been under pressure to deliver after a patchy run of form, including last week’s fiasco at Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade, Vezenkov acknowledged that Olympiacos was forced to dig deep against its Italian rival.
“It was tough as we had a very bad performance last week and we knew that we didn’t play well the last two or three games,” Vezenkov told EuroLeague TV in a courtside interview. “We started well but the second quarter was terrible and at halftime we knew we had to start over again.
“We confined Virtus to just 10 points in the third quarter and kept pushing, although we didn’t play our best basketball. We are a great team and we’ve got big expectations, but we have to prove it every week.”
Fournier, who ignited the second-half comeback when he drained in his shots from all over in the third quarter, revealed that the team took some bruising criticism from head coach Georgios Bartzokas at halftime, after the stalwart tactician charged his team with being “softer than butter” on defense in last week’s 87-73 reverse at Zvezda.
“I was frustrated with how we closed out the first half as the second quarter was really bad,” said the Frenchman. “If we want to be at the top, we need to have certain standards and they have to be maintained for the full 40 minutes. I tried to give the team a boost and some energy in the third. The coach cursed us [at halftime] big time, which is exactly what we needed.”
Fournier also heaped praise on Vezenkov, as the two linked up to devastating effect when the chips were down. “Sasha is such an easy player to play with because he is even better without the ball in his hands than with it. That creates a lot of danger for the opposition because of his movement,” Fournier pointed out.
Bartzokas too was unhappy with his team’s temporary meltdown but overall he was pleased to see his team grind out an important win on the back of 23 assists and 42 rebounds, 13 of which were on the offensive end. Olympiacos also shot a solid 13 of 29 from deep, while committing only 9 turnovers.
“For three quarters we controlled the pace but the second quarter was a disaster,” he said. “We stopped passing the ball and defending hard but we are happy that in the end, we returned home with a win. In two days we have another home game against ALBA Berlin and we are looking forward to it.”