The Reds produced a defensive masterpiece against one of the EuroLeague's hottest teams
Thomas Walkup lets the dogs out as Olympiacos’s defense suffocates Hapoel
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Regular Season
Round 8 of 38
Regular Season
Olympiacos PiraeusOLY
6258
Hapoel IBI Tel AvivHTA
Overview
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One after the other, Olympiacos Piraeus’s players step out from the locker room and into the corridor that leads to the tunnel. Sasha Vezenkov, the last to join, initiates a group embrace, with everybody shouting the team’s name before barking repeatedly as they make their way to the floor.
For the Reds' players, this is more than a pre-game ritual. It’s the group philosophy, the way they approach basketball. And if there’s one player who epitomizes that mentality, it is Thomas Walkup.
The Olympiacos guard missed a large part of the 2024-25 campaign due to a back injury before returning for the EuroLeague Playoffs. After barely missing a game in his first three seasons at the Reds, the 32-year-old struggled to rediscover his form and was effectively a non-factor for the Greek side at the Final Four.
Walkup recharged his batteries over the summer and returned to action as Olympiacos’s starting point guard in the first stretch of the season. Another injury sidelined him for three games, but he came back for the clash away at FC Bayern Munich, a night when the Reds held the German side to just 71 points.
Yet, what followed was a home loss to AS Monaco, which scored 92 points, raising concerns about Olympiacos’s defense earlier this week. Just two days later, the hosts regrouped to lock horns with the EuroLeague leader – a Hapoel IBI Tel Aviv side that led the league in points scored with an average of 93.0 per game.
"Defensively, we are well below the level we want to be at, and the level we were at in previous years,” head coach Georgios Bartzokas stressed before Friday’s clash. “That requires good teamwork, but also self-sacrifice, determination, and doing all the little things that matter.”
Olympiacos needed to bring back the mindset that established them as one of the best defenses in the league over the last few years.
“[The key was] just getting back to it,” Walkup told EuroLeague TV after the game against Hapoel. “Getting back to who we are, getting back to what we do, having that dogginess that we haven’t had consistently. We’ve shown it in spurts, but tonight in the second half… the dogs are out, the dogs are barking.”
Olympiacos struggled on offense, but every player who stepped onto the floor was locked in on the other end. The dogs were out, with Walkup leading the pack.
After holding Hapoel to its second-lowest scoring tally of the season in a half (39), Olympiacos gave up just 4 points in the third quarter. In fact, that was the first time the Israeli side failed to reach double figures in points in a quarter, as well as the joint-lowest tally ever allowed by Olympiacos in the regular season.
What followed was an exchange of blows in the fourth quarter before Olympiacos took a 58-52 lead with 2:40 left on the clock. That’s when Vasilije Micic came to the fore, netting two straight triples to tie the game up. But his Serbia teammate Nikola Milutinov struck right back, giving the hosts a 60-58 lead with 39 seconds remaining.
Having secured a narrow lead, Olympiacos needed its defense to deliver on the other end against a red-hot Micic. Up stepped Walkup, who forced a turnover from the Hapoel guard and celebrated frantically with his teammates.
The hosts regained the possession, but Micic made up for his mistake by getting a steal on Alec Peters following an inbound play. The Olympiacos forward fouled Micic, offering Hapoel another opportunity to escape with a victory. However, with 23 seconds remaining, Walkup successfully got into Micic’s path, drawing a charge to forcing the former EuroLeague MVP to commit an offensive foul.
“It was not just this play, but in general the defense,” Walkup told EuroLeague TV. “It’s been a while since we came out and played a pretty good defensive game. [Hapoel] is a really offensive-talented team, they play really well. To hold them to 50-something points today, it was a really good defensive effort by us.”
Vezenkov hit a couple of free throws on the other end and Olympiacos got back to winning ways. More importantly, the Greek side protected its home court, having already suffered two defeats at SEF in four games so far.
“We needed to get back to our basics on defense,” Bartzokas told EuroLeague TV. “They scored 4 points in the third quarter and 19 in the second half. This is the second-best offense in EuroLeague and the first team in the rankings. Holding them to 58 points is a big-time accomplishment.”
It’s no coincidence that Walkup’s first big game following his back injury was combined with Olympiacos’s best defensive outing this season. The veteran guard set the tone on defense and the rest of the pack followed into his footsteps. The Reds returned to their fundamentals, with Walkup setting the standard for the remainder of the season.
