There were contributions from a plethora of players
Efes stunned Olympiacos with offense-heavy first half
It was almost a case of déjà vu for Olympiacos Piraeus as it got off to a slow start against Anadolu Efes Istanbul, just like it did against Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens last week. This time, though, Efes went from strength to strength as it grabbed a must-win victory in the play-in race.
Efes knew that it needed to come out on top on Thursday evening, but it wouldn’t be easy against an Olympiacos side that had won six straight. Nerves were to be expected, but Tibor Pleiss calmed things down inside Sinan Erdem Sports Hall by hitting 3 straight three-pointers to put Efes 9-0 ahead early. The veteran big man didn’t score a single point in the remainder of the contest, but you could make a case that his points were the most important.
That 9-0 start seemed to allow the other Efes players to find their groove, with Will Clyburn’s triple putting the hosts 12-2 ahead four minutes into the game. Expectedly, there was a bit of response from Olympiacos after that, but Efes’s ability to make three-pointer after three-pointer poured cold water on any hopes the Reds had of completing a quick turnaround.
By the end of the first quarter, Efes led 26-21 and had shot 6 for 8 from three-point range, as Pleiss made 3, Clyburn 1 and Shane Larkin 2. Tomislav Mijatovic had seen five of his players get on the board, too, compared to three for Olympiacos in the first 10 minutes.
The déjà vu for Olympiacos looked like it was going to come to fruition when Moses Wright made it a one-point game on a couple of occasions early in the second quarter, having also come to the fore in the second quarter of his first-ever Greek Derby last Thursday evening. Yet, the threeball kept coming to Efes’s rescue as it found a way to stay ahead on the scoreboard.
When Derek Willis hit a couple of triples in the final minutes before halftime, Efes’s ninth and 10th makes from deep on the night, the hosts had reestablished a double-digit lead, 46-35, before taking a 48-37 advantage into the break. Curiously, those 48 points are tied for the third-highest number of points Olympiacos has given up in a half all season long.
The previous three times that Olympiacos’s opponent had scored 48 or more points in a first half this season, it had gone 1-2, losing to Real Madrid and Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz but beating ALBA Berlin. Well, that mark is now 1-3 as Efes went on to triumph 85-72, having never trailed.
Efes displayed what it is capable of on both defense and offense in the first half against Olympiacos, with nine of the 11 players who stepped onto the court scoring inside the opening 20 minutes. What’s more, the team had shot 10 of 14 on three-pointers, meaning that 71.4% of its first-half points had come from behind the arc.
With just four games to go in the regular season, Coach Mijatovic will be looking for that same level of intensity from here on out, starting against ALBA on Thursday night.