2020-21Regular SeasonRound 31
Olympiacos Piraeus 71
Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul 76
March 26, 2021 CET: 20:00
Local time: 21:00 PEACE AND FRIENDSHIP STADIUM

Fenerbahce holds on, eliminates Olympiacos

Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul led from start to finish for an important win in a heated playoff race, holding off host Olympiacos Piraeus 71-76 on Friday at Peace and Friendship Stadium. Fenerbahce improved to 19-12 on the season, sharing a fourth-best record with three games to go. The loss dropped Olympiacos to 14-17 and eliminated it from the playoffs race. Fenerbahce scored the first 8 points of the game, needed under 5 minutes to build a double-digit lead, and went on to lead by as many as 18 in the second quarter. Olympiacos tried to rally in the second half, but never got closer than 6 until the final seconds of the game. Jan Vesely paced Fenerbahce with 18 points and Dyshawn Pierre scored 15. Livio Jean-Charles led Olympiacos with 16 points and 8 rebounds. Sasha Vezenkov had 15 points and Kostas Sloukas finished with 12 in the losing effort against his former team.

Ahmet Duverioglu scored twice and also had 2 offensive rebounds in Fenerbahce’s game-opening 0-8 run. Close-range baskets from him and Pierre extended the lead to 2-14 before Vezenkov stopped the early bleeding with a three-pointer. Fenerbahce kept punishing the hosts inside, through Marko Guduric and Kyle O'Quinn, but Georgios Printezis and Vassilis Spanoulis got the Reds to within 11-20 at the end of the first quarter. A pair of baskets from Fenerbahce’s Danilo Barthel opened the second quarter at 11-24. Sloukas had a triple-plus-free throw, but O'Quinn inside and Kenan Sipahi from the outside increased the visitors’ margin to 17-31. Giannoulis Larentzakis knocked down consecutive threes for the hosts, but the margin remained in double figures. Barthel and Jean-Charles traded put-back layups, but Vesely scored twice, including an alley-oop dunk, to open an 18-point lead, before Fenerbahce took 27-43 into halftime.

A put-back dunk from Jean-Charles and a three-pointer from Vezenkov got the Reds going in the opening minute of the third quarter. Another put-back dunk from Jean-Charles forced a Fenerbahce timeout, but Vezenkov hit another triple to cut it to 39-45 after just 3:30 played in the quarter. But Fenerbahce defense stopped the bleeding, not allowing another basket for almost 4 minutes, a span during which Pierre strung together 6 points to restore a double-digit margin. Sloukas ended a drought with a triple before Printezis scored inside and from the outside. But Pierre knocked down a triple on the other end to help Fenerbahce take 49-58 into the fourth quarter. O'Quinn opened the fourth with a corner triple, and Lorenzo Brown followed with a steal and dunk before a long-range shot from Nando De Colo made it 51-66 with 7:30 to go. Spanoulis tried to spark the Reds, but their offense could not manage much. Vesely had a steal that led to his two-handed reverse dunk to open a 53-70 advantage with 4 minutes left. Jean-Charles and Vezenkov each scored twice from close range, with Larentzakis netting a triple to get Olympiacos within 64-72 with 1:08 to go. A triple from Sloukas and another close-range basket from Jean-Charles made it 71-74 with 11 seconds on the clock, but Fenerbahce held on.

Ruling inside

For the fifth time this season and the second time against Olympiacos, Fenerbahce made two-point shots with better than 64% accuracy. After making 64.3% back in December in beating the Reds, Fenerbahce bettered that with 26-for-38 shooting for 68.4% in this game.

Key contributor

Dyshawn Pierre finished the game with 15 points, which is the seventh time he scored at least that many points this season, his first in the EuroLeague. In this win, however, he played a season-high 34:09 minutes and shared a team lead with 4 assists.

Hidden contributor

Nando De Colo came into the game ranked seventh in scoring with 15.4 points per game. He scored 7 points in this contest, less than half of his season average, but did just about everything else with 7 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals.

Missing playoffs

With this loss, Olympiacos has been eliminated from the playoff race. With three game to go and a minimum of 18 victories needed to advance, the Reds can no longer hope for their first playoffs appearance since 2017-18.

Next up

Fenerbahce will be in action again on Tuesday, in the first game of the double-round week, when it visits FC Bayern Munich (19-12) for a Round 32 game with serious playoff implications. Olympiacos will visit Valencia Basket (17-14) a day later.

Jan Vesely - Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul - EB20
Friday, March 26, 2021
Euroleague.net
Referees: BELOSEVIC, ILIJA; CORTES, CARLOS; LAURINAVICIUS, JURGIS
Attendance: 0
By Quarter1234
Olympiacos Piraeus11162222
Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul20231518
End of Quarter1234
Olympiacos Piraeus11274971
Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul20435876
Olympiacos Piraeus
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
2 HARRISON, AARON 8:59   0/1 0/2   1   1     1     1   -4
4 CHARALAMPOPOULOS, VASILIS DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
5 LARENTZAKIS, GIANNOULIS 11:47 9 0/1 3/5         2 2 2     3   5
7 SPANOULIS, VASSILIS 24:06 6 1/2 0/1 4/4       2   3       3 6
11 SLOUKAS, KOSTAS 34:43 12 0/2 3/7 3/3   4 4 5 2 5     2 7 17
14 VEZENKOV, SASHA 31:25 15 3/5 3/7 0/1 1 2 3 2 1 2     3 1 10
15 PRINTEZIS, GEORGIOS 12:14 7 2/4 1/2   1 2 3     3       1 5
17 JEAN-CHARLES, LIVIO 28:52 16 8/8 0/1   5 3 8   3 2     2   22
22 JENKINS, CHARLES 8:17 2 1/1             1           3
31 KOUFOS, KOSTA 5:35   0/2     1   1 1   1     1   -2
32 ELLIS, OCTAVIUS 17:39 4 2/4     3 4 7 1   1   1 3 2 7
77 MCKISSIC, SHAQUIELLE 16:23   0/3 0/4   1 1 2 2         3 1 -5
Team           1 3 4               4
Totals 200:00 71 17/33 10/29 7/8 14 19 33 15 9 20 0 1 18 15 68
        51.5% 34.5% 87.5%
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
Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
4 BROWN, LORENZO 22:44 8 3/5 0/2 2/2 1   1 2 2 3     1 2 7
8 GUDURIC, MARKO 21:18 2 1/2 0/3     2 2 3   1     4 1 -1
10 MAHMUTOGLU, MELIH 7:39     0/1     1 1           1   -1
11 O'QUINN, KYLE BRANDON 13:54 9 3/4 1/1     1 1 1   2     1   7
13 BIBEROVIC, TARIK DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
19 DE COLO, NANDO 32:54 7 1/3 1/6 2/2   7 7 4 3 3     3 6 14
21 PIERRE, DYSHAWN 34:09 15 4/6 1/3 4/4 1 1 2 4 1 3       3 18
22 BARTHEL, DANILO 23:36 6 3/4 0/1   1 5 6 1 2   1   2   12
24 VESELY, JAN 29:41 18 7/9 0/1 4/4   2 2 3 3 2     2 4 23
25 SIPAHI, KENAN 4:43 5 1/1 1/1           1         1 7
31 EDDIE, JARELL DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
44 DUVERIOGLU, AHMET 9:22 6 3/4     2 1 3     2     1 1 6
Team           2 2 4               4
Totals 200:00 76 26/38 4/19 12/12 7 22 29 18 12 16 1 0 15 18 96
        68.4% 21.1% 100%
Head coach: KOKOSKOV, IGOR

Head Coaches

BARTZOKAS, GEORGIOS
Olympiacos Piraeus
“I want to congratulate Fenerbahce. They had a solid game for 40 minutes, especially in the first half. The are full of quality in every spot, and they can punish whatever the opponents are giving. For us, one more time, it is the same question and it is what I said to the players in the locker room: “hat is the reality for our team? How we start the games or how we end the games? We have to find a real conclusion about this because we start every time the same way, hesitating on both offense and defense. It is not normal to start the game allowing 7 offensive rebounds on 13 missed shots. And in the second half, when we had switching defense and we were in mismatches boxing out, we gave up zero offensive rebounds. So I am really curios about that. It was a good effort in the second half, but it was not enough. Some missed shots, some turnovers in the crucial part of the game, gave Fenerbahce the opportunity to finish the game with their experience.”
KOKOSKOV, IGOR
Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul
“A very difficult game for our team, from a psychological point of view, against a good team with a lot of depth, a lot of talent, with a lot of veteran experience. And they played with nothing to lose. They played at home, played for pride, and this game meant so much to us. We did not need to re-emphasize the importance of the game, but we knew this game was crucial for us. Overall, we opened the game very well. In the first half, we set the tone, we sent the game in the right direction, we executed a game plan. I shortened the rotation, we played with less guys. Some heavy minutes for the main guys. I think that affected our second half; a little fatigued, a little tired, a lot of turnovers. But it wasn't a perfect game by any means. We played a very good team, and the one thing we are going to remember is that we won and we move on. We have a tough schedule ahead of us. We have to focus on the next one.”

Players

VESELY, JAN
Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul
“I have been with Fenerbahce for a long time. I would say that I am an experienced player, so I am trying to help the team in any way. I am glad we won, but in the end, we did not play focused. We gave them a chance to come back. That can cost us in the upcoming games.”
PIERRE, DYSHAWN
Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul
“We are trying to be persistent. We lost a little bit of focus at the end of the game, but it is that good we had our veterans pull us together to make sure we got through the game. And we got the win, that's all that matters.”