Olympiacos wants victories, health and minds

The win against Bayern was imperative for two reasons. First, a breather in the standings, as the groups with the same records in the standings are starting to grow and Olympiacos has already given some gifts. The second is psychology. No matter how much you believe in yourself, no matter how improved your appearance is, no matter how much they believe in you, it’s a given that validation is needed.

What a good team you are, what goals can you say if you don’t win? And yes, winning the game against Bayern is a must, even if things go downhill within 40 minutes. Because that’s what happened. The port team ended the devil’s week with one loss and one win. Both home games, the lost game against the Madrid Express and the win against the ambitious team from Bavaria.

Pablo Lasso did better than any other year, but that’s also why he was hired. Okay, they don’t have much in common with their otherwise terrorizing soccer team, but the Germans are now struggling to achieve anything in basketball.

That ends up being a mix of some world champions, some players that have come through the NBA, and now there’s also Francisco, who was great in our area last year with the Peristeri jersey and who, if he made a layup at the end had , can it also put more pressure on the red side?

Crashes and dice!

Bayern scores 80 points and eats over 81. Olympiacos had managed to take just… 4 points from the German team in the 8th minute, leading its players down paths Lasso didn’t even expect them to cross would. The little ones fell, Edwards eventually went crazy and started pulling the handbrakes in one-on-all surprises, and the big ones were completely suffocated by the beasts of Olympiacos. It was the most correct and easiest start for Piraeus at this year’s event. It was similar to last year and threw Bayern into… the three-point maelstrom.

The Germans struggled to close, and they did so by shooting well outside the 6.75 meter mark. Even when the two benches started to rotate, Olympiacos Piraeus kept its balance and, above all, I liked that the ball left their hands quickly, which was not only the result of good basketball, but also forced Bayern to stop. The hosts scored 20 very early on, but the guests’ reaction was also appropriate, which brought the half-time difference to twelve…

Crash and Thomas!

Olympiacos Piraeus made this game look easy several times, but the cold truth is that they dismantled Bayern at the start and then lost the second, third and fourth halves by separate points. Maybe some of you think there’s no point in losing three shutout quarters if you’re… confident your opponent doesn’t have the momentum to hurt you, but Bartzokas, who demands perfection and does very well, has that Team caught several times We work under the status of… paratrooper.

The last few minutes went like that too. I can fully support the Red and Whites turning a game into a riot, but Bayern aren’t as bad as many believed at the start of the game. Therefore the difference was collected. First, they are one of the few teams in the competition that jumps at every ball in the rebound zone. They are betrayed by the impulsiveness of the little Americans and especially Francisco and Edwards, but you can never rest with teams like this.

On the other hand, Bayern were an easy case because of Olympiakos’ defensive teeth as long as they insisted on obsessive threes. Larentzakis gave a lot by supporting the Miloutinov-Peters duo. But the player who decided the fate of the game was the one who passed silently to those who didn’t look at the statistics.

Because those who sat down to crunch the numbers easily came to the conclusion that, after a night of non-stop shots against Real, Walkup this time raised the flag of composure and logic by holding the entire team. Until he scored, Papanikolaou had done classically what many understand, and classically what only few understand…

No wisdom

Olympiakos was better from the start and only at the end did it try to beat its world. We gained nothing from this game and in the end it was a victory that, as I wrote in the foreword, was non-negotiable. We didn’t see Petrusev, the team kept the rebounds and shot much better than their opponents.

There are still players who have more to give, like Brazdikis, who kicks the floor very well, but still lacks the psychology to put it in the basket. If Williams-Goss returns, he will give Olympiakos his organizational basketball again, and there is also curiosity about how Barzokas will use Mitrou-Long in the EuroLeague in the new year. Because that’s what the coach expects. In 2024 he should find his players healthy and with brains in their heads…

In and out again…adventure!

The next European commitment will find Olympiacos again in SEF. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, the team has played enough home games. That’s true, but it’s all out by the end of ’23, and think that the following week will be double, just like the first week of ’24 will be double, when the world will see Olympiakos in SEF again .

Maybe the next time the Piraeus team meets with their own people, they will have all their players healthy and ready to fight. Because let’s not forget: no matter what was done, no matter what we said, it all happened with an Olympiacos who never fully trained. It’s not an excuse, it’s a fact…