After playing in back-to-back Final Fours and making it to the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Championship Game last season, Olympiacos Piraeus is fighting to again advance to the playoffs and claim home-court advantage once there to punch its ticket to Berlin 2024.
Case for the Final Four: Olympiacos Piraeus
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Over the last few years, Olympiacos Piraeus has had to shake up its team as it looked for new leaders after the previous ones either retired or went elsewhere. It took the Reds some time to work as a unit, but their values are non-negotiable: character, team-oriented attitude and high intensity at both ends.
Making the case to reach the Final Four for Olympiacos is relatively easy. Most of the players and head coach Georgios Bartzokas have been there and know what it takes to be competitive over the coming three months.
Defense usually takes you there
It is one of the clichés in basketball: offense wins games, defense wins championships. In this case, Olympiacos's defense has allowed the Reds to be in the fight to reach yet another Final Four. Statistically speaking, Olympiacos is the best defensive team in the competition, allowing just 75.2 points per game. On the flip side, Olympiacos is 8-1 when scoring 80 points or more, only losing in Round 23 against Real Madrid, 90-85.
What makes Olympiacos's defense so great? It forces opponents into 13.4 turnovers on average. Only AS Monaco (14.1 per game) has better numbers. The Reds collapse the paint well, as their opposition only take 34.5 two-point shots on average, with a low percentage (52.3% 2FG). Olympiacos allows its rivals to shoot many three-point shots (26.5 per game, fifth overall), in addition to allowing just 9.4 offensive rebounds per game and grabbing 24.1 defensive boards on average. That means Olympiacos gets 71.9% of all rebounds under its rim. A focus on steals, boxing out and contesting a lot of shots has allowed Olympiacos to be a rock-solid team on defense until now.
Deeper than last season
Olympiacos has turned each injury into an opportunity to sign somebody else who has helped the team. Nikola Milutinov and Moustapha Fall went down within a matter of days, and Olympiacos was quick enough to land Moses Wright, who contributed right away. Before that, Olympiacos landed Filip Petrusev, who can see playing time at the “four” and “five” positions due to his shooting range, athleticism and quickness. As such, Olympiacos has four elite-level players at center, which gives Coach Bartzokas endless options in each and every game.
Some of the new signings battled injuries and should be ready to bring out their best version towards the end of the season. Naz Mitrou-Long is slowly getting into the team's rotation, meanwhile Ignas Brazdeikis and Luke Sikma have proven to be very reliable options when seeing extended playing time. Nigel Williams-Goss needed a few adjustments, having last played for the Reds in the 2018-19 season, but being a EuroLeague champion with Real Madrid should help his confidence when the most important games arrive.
Strong in the home straight
With Coach Bartzokas, Olympiacos has enjoyed good runs towards the end of the regular season. He and his coaching staff know how to handle the schedule and it is no coincidence that Olympiacos has had a late push in his five full seasons as the Reds' boss. Last year, Olympiacos won seven of its last 10 games to rank first at the end of the regular season with a 24-10 record. One season earlier, Olympiacos had a 19-9 regular-season record and reached that mark by winning eight of its last 10 games. Even in the 2020-21 campaign, when Olympiacos did not make the playoffs, the Reds won five of its last seven games.
This good form right when it matters goes back to Coach Bartzokas's first stint with Olympiacos. In the 2012-13 season, after a 1-3 start, Olympiacos won eight of its last 10 Top 16 games to qualify for the playoffs and lock up home-court advantage. A year later, Olympiacos won its last four Top 16 games to finish 8-6 and make the playoffs. That type of growth late in the season is crucial in a 34-game calendar and is a big reason to believe that Olympiacos will have a strong final push again that may lead to home-court advantage in the playoffs.
Redefined roles work
One of the biggest question marks hovering over Olympiacos at the start of the season was who would lead the way in the post-Kostas Sloukas and Sasha Vezenkov era. Olympiacos solved that problem in a very organic way, as some of its veterans on the team have seen increased roles and made the team just as competitive as before. Alec Peters is a perfect example. Last season, Peters averaged 4.6 points, 2.5 rebounds and a PIR of 4.5 as a backup power forward. With Vezenkov gone, Peters has enjoyed twice as much playing time as last season, starting every game to average 14.3 points on 54.8% three-point shooting (third overall), 5.2 rebounds and a PIR of 16.1.
Isaiah Canaan and Thomas Walkup combined for an average of 41 minutes per night last season, and are up to 51 minutes per game in the current campaign. Walkup and Canaan are two of eight players who have started all 26 games so far this season and are the only teammates to do so. Walkup improved his scoring average from 7.4 points to 8.8 from one season to another. In the 2022-23 season, Canaan averaged 6.3 points on 38.2% three-pointers and a PIR of 3.4. This year, he has boosted those numbers up to 12.7 points on 46.6% three-pointers and a PIR of 10.0. In short, Olympiacos successfully reinvented itself without changing its structure.