2019-20Regular SeasonRound 22
Olympiacos Piraeus 80
KIROLBET Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz 70
January 30, 2020 CET: 20:00
Local time: 21:00 PEACE AND FRIENDSHIP STADIUM

Olympiacos overcomes emotions, Baskonia

Olympiacos Piraeus used a fine defensive performance in the second half to beat visiting KIROLBET Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz 80-70 at Peace and Friendship Stadium on Thursday night. Olympiacos improved to 9-13 on the season, while Baskonia dropped to 8-14. Despite the loss, Baskonia kept the head-to-head tiebreak advantage over the Reds due to its 16-point win in Round 4. Olympiacos trailed for just one possession late in the first quarter and once it pulled out to a double-digit lead in the third quarter, it never relinquished control of the game. With Georgios Printezis sitting out, Augustine Rubit stepped up with 19 points plus 7 rebounds and Octavius Ellis had a nice debut with 11 points and 7 rebounds. Vassilis Spanoulis netted 16 points on 4-for-5 three-point shooting and Nikola Milutinov scored 10 points. For Baskonia, Tornike Shengelia had 14 points and 7 assists and Nik Stauskas and Shavon Shields also scored 14 each.

There was little separation between the teams in the first half. Rubit kept the Reds in front by scoring 6 points and Spanoulis added his first triple to make it 13-8. Spanoulis hit another one from long range, but Shengelia pushed Baskonia to stay close. Achille Polonara put Baskonia briefly in front, 20-21, with a corner triple, but Sasha Vezenkov answered from long range to help Olympiacos lead 25-24 after 10 minutes. A three from Vasilis Charalampopoulos helped open a 30-24 lead in the opening minute of the second quarter, but Shengelia sparked Baskonia's 0-6 run to tie things up again. Spanoulis and Stauskas traded threes to make it 35-33 and the hosts remained in front by a single possession until the fourth three-pointer from Spanoulis, which made it 43-37 at halftime.

Shengelia opened the third quarter with a three, but Spanoulis and Milutinov connected on an alley-oop dunk before Kostas Papanikolaou knocked down a wide-open triple to stretch the lead to 50-40. Stauskas and Shields combined to score 9 points to keep Baskonia within 57-51 late in the third, but Taylor Rochestie had a long jumper and Brandon Paul a triple early in the fourth to make it 64-54 before Rubit's three-point play extended the difference to 69-55 with 7:11 minutes left. Stauskas and Matt Janning each had a three-pointer for the visitors, but those were their only field goals in the next 4 minutes. Rubit answered with a corner three on the other end with 2 minutes to go and there was no coming back for Baskonia.

Interior defense

The visitors were kept alive in this game by their 12 three-pointers, as Olympiacos did a great job inside. The Reds had 4 blocked shots and allowed just 13 of 32 (40.6%) two-point shots.

High emotions

A minute of silence was observed before the game to honor Robert Archibald and Kobe Bryant who passed away this weekend. To honor the basketball legend Bryant, who wore numbers 8 and 24 during his career, Olympiacos took a 24-second shot-clock violation to start the game and Baskonia followed with an 8-second half-court violation. In addition, Olympiacos honored assistant sporting director Antonis Dais, one of the longest-serving Olympiacos employees, who passed away last week.

New contributors

Augustine Rubit shined in a starting role for Olympiacos with 19 points and 7 rebounds, and another player using the absence of Georgios Printezis was newcomer Octavius Ellis, who collected 11 points on 4-for-4 two-point shooting in 19 minutes of play. On the other end, Semaj Christon made his EuroLeague debut in a Baskonia jersey and finished with 3 points in 20:35 on the floor.

Injury exit

Vasilis Charalampopolous made his second appearance of the season and hit a three-pointer, which was his first basket in the competition since December 2016. The 23-year-old, who previously made 26 appearances over four years from 2013 to 2017 with Panathinaikos OPAP Athens, also had 2 steals and 1 assist, but unfortunately had to leave the game at the start of the fourth quarter with an apparent ankle injury.

Next up

The two-round week is coming up and both teams will be on the road in Round 23 on Tuesday. Olympiacos will travel to face Zalgiris Kaunas, and Baskonia will square off against a fellow Spanish League club Real Madrid.

Augustine Rubit - Olympiacos Piraeus - EB19
Thursday, January 30, 2020
Euroleague.net
Referees: JAVOR, DAMIR; DIFALLAH, MEHDI; BALAK, AMIT
Attendance: 5730
By Quarter1234
Olympiacos Piraeus25181621
KIROLBET Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz24131419
End of Quarter1234
Olympiacos Piraeus25435980
KIROLBET Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz24375170
Olympiacos Piraeus
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
1 ROCHESTIE, TAYLOR 13:16 2 1/4 0/2   1 1 2 4   2     1 1 1
2 BALDWIN IV, WADE 21:29 2 1/3 0/2   1 3 4 6         5   3
3 PAUL, BRANDON 13:01 3 0/1 1/1   1 1 2 1         1 2 6
4 CHARALAMPOPOULOS, VASILIS 11:10 3   1/3         1 2   1       5
6 KONIARIS, ANTONIOS 14:40     0/2     2 2 3   2     1 2 2
7 SPANOULIS, VASSILIS 30:35 16 1/2 4/5 2/2   3 3 4   3     2 2 18
11 MILUTINOV, NIKOLA 20:44 10 4/4   2/2 1 2 3     1     2 6 16
14 VEZENKOV, SASHA 7:27 9 1/1 1/3 4/4       1           2 10
15 PRINTEZIS, GEORGIOS DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
16 PAPANIKOLAOU, KOSTAS 17:03 5 1/1 1/6     3 3             1 4
21 RUBIT, AUGUSTINE 31:19 19 5/7 2/3 3/3 1 6 7 1   2 2 1 3 3 23
32 ELLIS, OCTAVIUS 19:16 11 4/4   3/4 1 6 7 1 1 1 1   4 5 20
Team           1 1 2     3         -1
Totals 200:00 80 18/27 10/27 14/15 7 28 35 22 3 14 4 1 19 24 107
        66.7% 37% 93.3%
Head coach: BARTZOKAS, GEORGIOS
Min: Minutes played; Pts: Points; 2FG M-A: 2-point Field Goals (Made-Attempted); 3FG M-A: 3-point Field Goals (Made-Attempted); FT M-A: Free Throws (Made-Attempted); Rebounds: O (Offensive), D (Defensive), T (Total); As: Assists; St: Steals; To: Turnovers; Bl: Blocks (Fv: In Favor / Ag: Against); Fouls: Cm (Commited), Rv (Received); PIR: Performance Index Rating
KIROLBET Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
1 PENAVA, AJDIN DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
5 GONZALEZ, MIGUEL DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
6 CHRISTON, SEMAJ 20:35 3 0/3 1/3   1   1 3   1     1 1 1
11 JANNING, MATT 16:05 5 1/3 1/4   1 1 2 1   1     3   -1
12 DIOP, ILIMANE 4:05   0/1                 1   2   -2
17 GARCIA, SERGI 24:43 5 1/1 1/3   1 5 6 3   1     3 1 9
19 FALL, YOUSSOUPHA 9:33 2 1/2     2 3 5     2   1 3 1 1
22 STAUSKAS, NIK 24:05 14 1/3 4/8 0/1   1 1 1 3 2   1 2 3 10
23 SHENGELIA, TORNIKE 30:32 14 4/9 1/3 3/4 2 3 5 7 1 1   1 5 6 18
31 SHIELDS, SHAVON 33:21 14 3/7 2/5 2/2   2 2     1   1 1 2 8
33 POLONARA, ACHILLE 13:29 8 0/1 2/3 2/4 1 1 2 1         1 2 8
50 ERIC, MICHAEL 23:32 5 2/2   1/4 1 1 2     1     3 3 3
Team           2 1 3     1         2
Totals 200:00 70 13/32 12/29 8/15 11 18 29 16 4 11 1 4 24 19 57
        40.6% 41.4% 53.3%
Head coach: IVANOVIC, DUSKO

Head Coaches

BARTZOKAS, GEORGIOS
Olympiacos Piraeus

"I would like to congratulate my players, and also the fans. Because every victory is very important. We cannot underestimate anybody or any victory. This was a tough game, Baskonia is a great team, they have talent and size and we needed to play well. More or less, we needed more stability. We could have won this game more easily if we did not turn the ball over when we had a difference of more than 10 points. But I am very happy, it was a difficult week for us. We lost the oldest member of our team [Antonis Dais] and emotionally it was a tough week for us."

"The game was as we expected it to be. Baskonia is a team with size, with very good guards and forwards, and a team that right now has problems with creation, losing its point guards and now trying to sign players during the season. At the same time, I would like to give credit to my players, in our four games, including the game with Valencia, we are first in average assists. So, for me, that is very important because we were previously one of the worst teams in this segment. It means we try to play together, try to be unselfish, try to have a team effort instead of playing individually."

IVANOVIC, DUSKO
KIROLBET Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz
"Congratulation to Olympiacos. They played and tried to take advantage with their big guys. I think that is the big difference tonight. How they played pick-and-roll and how they played continuation, and how we played pick-and-roll and how we played continuation. The critical moment of the game, when we had an option to maybe win the game, we missed every open shot. It is very difficult like that."

Players

SPANOULIS, VASSILIS
Olympiacos Piraeus
"I enjoy playing basketball, I love playing basketball so much, that is my life after my family and I try to do it as best as I can. Today was a team win, we prepared good for this game. We had extra motivation, extra reason to play good because of our guy Antonis Dais who passed away. We are very sad and devastated about this. He was our great friend. Also, for Kobe, his daughter, all the children and people in the helicopter crash. We feel very sorry, very sad for their families. It was all an extra reason for us to play basketball."
RUBIT, AUGUSTINE
Olympiacos Piraeus
"I feel great for my performance, but more important is we got the win. I am happy about that. It as very important just to finish the season. Our goal is to make the top eight and the only way to do it is to win games. So, forget the past and win every game from here on out."