The veteran guard flirted with a triple-double and played stellar defense to lead the Reds.
All-action Thomas Walkup eager to re-watch win over Monaco
There is more than one way to win a game of basketball and more than one way to star as that game’s most important player.
And on Thursday night at a packed Peace and Friendship Stadium, Olympiacos Piraeus leaned on a smothering fourth-quarter defense and a remarkably versatile performance from Thomas Walkup to grind out a valuable 75-73 victory over fellow title contender AS Monaco.
Olympiacos trailed nearly all of the game, at one stage by 8 points, but just refused to go away. Despite struggling to find fluent ball movement or smooth penetration against an excellent Monaco defense, the Reds just about scored often enough to stop the game from escaping them, and then gradually stepped up the pressure – with the help of the raucous home crowd – in the decisive latter stages.
Eventually, a halfcourt prayer from Mike James on the final buzzer fell short, and Olympiacos claimed the win after restricting the dangerous visiting offense to just 15 points in the final quarter and 2 field goals in the last 5minutes.
A key to that defensive effort – and everything else – was the all-action Walkup, who flirted with a triple-double as he recorded 9 points, 9 assists, 7 rebounds and 1 steal for a game-high PIR of 22, also spending more time on the floor than any other player with more than 33 minutes of action in a relentlessly grueling contest.
Other key numbers to emerge from Walkup’s performance are seen in the performance of Mike James, who came into the game as the competition’s leading scorer and top-ranked player. But on this occasion, the suffocating defense of Walkup meant that James could only score 10 points on 4-of-14 field goal shooting, with his only three-pointer coming in the final seconds when the margin was 4 points and Olympiacos elected not to defend him closely in order to avoid the danger of conceding a shooting foul.
Walkup’s combination of defense, distribution and scoring meant that he was never far away from the action, and after the game he insisted that he had enjoyed every second.
“Hell of a game!” he laughed. “Man, I wanna watch that one back as just a neutral fan of basketball. That was a really fun game. Hell of a crowd today, we fought back and really showed our character.”
Generously, Walkup downplayed his defensive efforts on James, pointing out that the Monaco star exploited the extra attention paid by Olympiacos to stop him from scoring by focusing more on distributing, dishing 7 assists.
“Mike played really great,” said Walkup. "He facilitated really well and made a lot of good passes. But our team played really well tonight. Guys made shots, guys defended, we showed guts when we needed to. That's a huge team effort.”
Nobody made a bigger effort than Walkup, who admitted slight regret that he didn’t quite achieve a triple-double after falling 1 point, 1 assist and 3 rebounds short. “I want it!” he asserted. "I wish I would have known that I was on a triple-double watch there!”
Considering the all-around skillset that Walkup possesses, more chances for that honor will probably come along. And the next time it does, somebody on the Olympiacos bench better be ready to let him know.