Olympiacos dominated Efes despite narrow final margin
The relatively narrow 6-point winning margin might suggest Friday’s showdown between Olympiacos Piraeus and Anadolu Efes Istanbul was a pretty close game, but in reality the Greek team was vastly superior in nearly aspect of the contest and should have won by a much bigger margin than the final 76-70 scoreline.
Olympiacos had significantly better field goal shooting percentages, making 20-of-31 (64.5%) two-pointers and 9-of-27 (33.3%) three-point attempts compared to 21-of-38 (55.3%) from two and 5-of-21 (23.8%) from three for the visiting team.
The Reds also dished more assists (24 vs. 18) and dominated the rebounding battle with 36 boards against Efes's 28. That extra physicality was also reflected in the fact that Olympiacos blocked 4 shots, with the Turkish team recording 2.
So, why was the game so close? Mainly because of a big disparity in free-throw shooting: Olympiacos converted only 9 of its 17 trips to the foul line, with veteran leader Kostas Papanikolaou slightly spoiling an otherwise inspirational performance by only making 1 of 4. Efes, on the other hand, converted 13 of its 15 free-throw shots to give itself a chance of making an unlikely comeback.
But if Olympiacos had come close to its usual 78% accuracy from the line, the final margin would have been in double digits – and that would have more accurately reflected the host’s dominance.