Olympiacos Piraeus’ nightmare away from home continues as they lost to Anadolu Efes in Istanbul and remain 0-4 in away games. Currently, all their wins in Euroleague this season came at Pireaus.
| Player of the Game | |
|
EFF
33
|
| Rodrigue Beaubois | |
| Points | 29 |
| Accuracy | 10-14 |
| Rebounds | 5 |
| Assists | 1 |
Head coach Georgios Bartzokas lamented about the last quarter where Olympiacos almost had a blackout and trailed with a 20-3 run to lose the game.
He opened up his post-game expressions by congratulating Anadolu Efes for committing to their own game for the entire 40 minutes.
“On that terms, we were just on the contrary. We kept deploying our game plan through 3 quarters, but the last quarter was a disaster. We lost our minds in the last 10 minutes,” Bartzokas commented.
“We were very bad both on the offensive and the defensive end. We did not play like Olympiacos. We were very far away from an organized team display, “he added.
During that last quarter, Olympiacos missed 11 field goals, 6 of them beyond the arc. The only bucket came from Aleksandr Vezenkov, who scored 17 points and flirted with a double-double with 8 rebounds.
One of the biggest reasons for the offensive slump was Tyler Dorsey’s ineffectiveness.
Being the primary scoring option of his team and top 10 player in the Pick and Roll ball handler efficiency list of EuroLeague (1.78 points per possession), Dorsey remained at 2 points with 1/6 shooting and 4 turnovers.
However, Bartzokas did not point out any individual performance as a reason for the defeat.
“I don’t criticize my players in public whenever they play bad, and I don’t give credit to them whenever they play well.
Whatever happens, we talk it in the locker room. It was a bad night for Tyler for sure. But he had many good nights up until now,” Bartzokas said.
French big man Moustapha Fall did his best to keep the momentum in offense and defense.
Fall’s 15 points was a Euroleague best in the player’s Olympiacos career.
Bartzokas kept him in the game in almost the entire 3rd quarter to match with Tibor Pleiss in the restricted area, and Fall consistently kept drawing fouls (5 drawn fouls) to bring Olympiacos on the charity stripe. (13/16 FT).
Like his coach, the French center also self-criticized their overall effort in the last quarter.
“Things were working until the third quarter. I don’t know what was happening in the third quarter.
We started playing badly in offense, picking bad shot after bad shot. We stopped executing the plays. The opponent was good, so we could not finish them after just one pick and roll. We just gave up the game in the 4th quarter,” Fall said.
That was not all. Fall also had to deal with Shane Larkin and Vasilje Micic at the top of the circle within Olympiacos’ switching scheme.
Despite being 2.18 and far away from the rim, Fall somehow contained the attacks from EuroLeague’s arguably best pick and roll ball handlers’ duo in the offense.
In retrospect, Fall’s Olympic experience last summer, where France beat Team USA in the group stage and reached the final, seemed to push him to new heights in terms of his defensive capabilities.
“It’s been a while I started switching. In the beginning, it was hard. This summer, I had to switch on the best players in Olympics. Since the beginning of the season, we have done a lot of switching. I’m getting used to it.
I’m not saying it is easy, but I think I’m doing a good job so far. I’ll just try to keep doing that,” Fall concluded.
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