The Greek side kept its playoff hopes alive with an important victory.
Aris’s defense gave no chance to point guard-less Lietkabelis
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Aris Midea Thessaloniki came into its game with 7bet-Lietkabelis Panevezys as one of the most aggressive defenses in the BKT EuroCup. And Lietkabelis had no chance, as it could not handle Aris’s pressure without its top two point guards.
Aris forced 23 Lietkabelis turnovers en route to a 69-60 victory, which snapped a four-game losing skid and kept its playoff hopes alive with a 4-7 record. Ioannis Kastritis’s team had 10 steals and shut down Lietkabelis’s offense.
The one disappointment for the winners was not being able to win the tiebreaker as Lietkabelis won its home game with Aris by 10 points, just shy of the Greek side’s winning total on Tuesday night.
“We were 1 point off, but I’ll take the win. That’s better than the loss. We played hard. It’s important for the qualification so I’ll take it,” said Ronnie Harrell, who scored 18 points and had 5 steals to lead Aris.
“Of course you want everything, but on the other hand you have to be realistic and satisfied,” noted Coach Kastritis. “We are not in a place where we can underestimate any victory. We have said that for most of our games we will be the underdogs. We are happy about every win that we get.”
Lipkevicius, Sabeckis absences were notable
Lietkabelis went into the game with just 10 players including missing its best two point guards, Vytenis Lipkevicius and Donatas Sabeckis. Lietkabelis was already ranked 18th in the league in turnovers with 15.7 per game. But its 23 miscues were quite a bit more than usual.
But that is Aris’s game, as the Greek side ranks second in steals with 9.6 and turnovers forced at 17.2.
Without its point guards, Lietkabelis just could not get its offense going, having averaged 85.2 points per game, ranked eighth in the league. Instead, it is was Aris’s defense which ruled the day, conceding 6.2 points fewer than its average of 75.2 coming into the game, which had the team ranked third in the league.