Olympiakos too strong for Monaco: A dream third quarter took the Greek giants to the final

The team from Piraeus lost 41:29 at halftime, and then won the third quarter with a difference of 25 points... They will fight for the Euroleague champion's trophy with the better team from the duel between Barcelona and Real Madrid.

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Photo: Reuters
Photo: Reuters
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

Olympiakos' furious third quarter was enough for Monaco to falter - the giants from Piraeus are the first finalists of the Euroleague and on Sunday at 19:2013 they will chase the fourth title of the champion of the Old Continent, the first since XNUMX.

In the first half, the "Princes" physically dominated, after 20 minutes they had a huge plus 12 (41:29), but in the sequel, a completely different picture was seen for the convincing triumph of the "red and whites" - 76:62.

The team of Jorgos Barkokas started to play fanatical defense, and the attack worked - for an unreal 27:2 in the third period and 13 points at the end of the third period.

The only points in that quarter for Monaco were scored by Eli Okobo from the counter attack when he leveled at 43:43, so it was tied for the worst performance ever in a quarter (for the first time in the final four), but even that did not stop the best team in regular time part of the season on the way to the first placement in the final after six years.

After a basket by Okoba, Olympiakos escaped to 56:43 without any problems, and then kept that advantage in the last 10 minutes.

"The third quarter was one of the best defenses ever. We didn't allow anything to Monaco - we had pressure, side help, defensive rebound and everything worked. At halftime I was just completely calm and I just told the players that we have to play our game. That was my basic message," Barcokas said.

Saša Vezenkov, MVP of the regular part of the season, was the most effective with 19, Kostas Papanikolaou scored 15, Mustafa Fal 12...

In Saša Obradović's team, Mike James scored 17, but with a 14-4 field goal, Okobo added 16, and Jordan Lloyd 11.

"I don't have an explanation for what happened in the third quarter. Olympiakos did increase the level of aggressiveness, and we seemed scared. Maybe it's a matter of inexperience," Obradović pointed out.

The second semi-final of the final four in Kaunas is from 20:XNUMX - Barcelona and Real Madrid meet.

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