Olympiacos cruises past Zvezda

Olympiacos Piraeus extended its winning streak to four games after defeating the visiting Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade 73-65 at Peace & Friendship Stadium on Tuesday night. Olympiacos improved to a league second-best 9-4 record, while Zvezda dropped to 5-8 on the season. Olympiacos took the lead for good early in the first quarter and then used 3 consecutive triples from Matt Lojeski to pull away to a double-digit margin in the second quarter and never looked back. Lojeski led Olympiacos with 18 points on 4-for-6 three-point shooting. Erick Green netted 15, and Nikola Milutinov had 11 points and 7 rebounds for Olympiacos, which played without Georgios Printezis. The visitors pulled down 16 offensive rebounds, but were held to 2 of 17 from long range and committed 15 turnovers. Stefan Jovic had 16 points, Marko Guduric finished with 12, while Ognjen Kuzmic amassed 13 points and 14 rebounds in defeat.

With Milutinov in the main role on the offensive glass, Olympiacos used 7 first-quarter offensive boards and forced 5 turnovers to grab lead. Fastbreak baskets from Dimitrios Agravanis and Kostas Papanikolaou opened a 12-9 advantage. Guduric had a three-point play for Zvezda to get it within a single point, but three-pointers from Agravanis and Green helped the hosts to 22-18 after 10 minutes. The start of the second quarter belonged to Lojeski, who hit 3 three-pointers in less than three minutes to open a 33-22 lead. The margin reached 13 points before Marko Simonovic and Jovic scored on breakaways, cutting the deficit to 39-32. Both teams turned it up defensively as halftime approached, as points were not coming easy. However, Spanoulis and Agravanis made sure Olympiacos took a 45-34 advantage into halftime. Vangelis Mantzaris hit one from outside, and Milutinov inside to give the hosts a 55-38 cushion in the third quarter. Baskets were few and far between, with Kuzmic dominating the boards for Zvezda, but Olympiacos controlled the rhythm to its liking. Neither team scored a single point for more than three minutes to finish third quarter. Lojeski’s fourth three-pointer of the night opened a 59-43 advantage at the start of the fourth quarter. Zvezda kept trying, and went on a run behind Jovic, who had a three-point play, a fastbreak layup and a three-pointer. Jovic also dished a pair of assists for Guduric, who scored 7 points of his own in a short span, and cut the deficit to 69-62 with 2:17 to play. But that is as close as the visitors would get.