The Greek giant narrowly escaped with a last-gasp win against the EuroLeague’s bottom team
Olympiacos avoided a banana skin against battling ALBA
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Olympiacos Piraeus was pushed to the limit in a tight 90-85 home win over ALBA Berlin in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague, with the home team prevailing thanks to the raw individual quality of its top performers, namely Evan Fournier and Moustapha Fall.
Big man Fall was named the player of the game after a monster performance in only his second game back from injury, racking up 18 points, 5 boards and 3 assists as he dominated the paint at both ends of the court.
Fall was perfect from the floor, 9 of 9, as most of his baskets were slam dunks while he also dished out some sublime assists to his teammates which put an icing on the cake of a stellar display.
"It’s a good feeling to be back and help the team win," Fall said in his post-game comments. "Individual performances don’t matter, but it’s always nice to have a good game like that. We had to fight through and find a way to win, so we stayed together and kept playing hard," he added.
Fournier paced Olympiacos with a game-high 23 points, although he had a patchy shooting night from deep, making 4 of 10 from downtown and 3 of 6 from inside. The Frenchman stepped up when the chips were down, however, and scored a pair of crucial two-pointers, forcing the decisive 8-0 Olympiacos streak in the final minute.
A relieved Fournier was anything but complacent after the outcome. "It would have been a bad loss and we have to play better," he said. "We have too many ups and downs. We have big ambitions this season and we have to fix that."
Head coach Georgios Bartzokas also acknowledged that his players would be ill-advised to take any opposition for granted in Europe’s premier club competition.
"This game is a timely reminder to everybody that this is the EuroLeague," the 59-year-old tactician stressed. "We fell into ALBA’s run-and-gun trap, they made five three-pointers in the fourth quarter and put a lot of pressure on us in the end, but we managed to win and that’s very important."
Bartzokas was also reasonably pleased with his team’s position at the halfway stage of the regular season, with Olympiacos in the top four of the standings on an 11-6 record.
"It feels great to have 11 wins after so many injury problems, although we could have avoided two or three road losses," he added. "Now we have to look at the future and we need everyone to contribute in order to raise our quality."
In Round 18 next week, Olympiacos visits EA7 Emporio Armani Milan while ALBA is at home to Real Madrid.