He real Madrid suffered a tough defeat this Tuesday (79-69) in its visit to Olympiacos during matchday 6 of the regular league of the Euroleagueremaining the meringues with a balance of 3-3 in the qualifying table and demonstrating in the Peace and Friendship Pavilion that their start to the season away from home has a lot to improve.
The equality was clear in the first quarter with Serge Ibaka starting and opening the merengue account with a triple. But to counteract the Spanish-Congolese center, Sasha Vezenkov and Thomas Walkup were soon activated at Olympiacos. With them as stilettos, the Greek team took a 17-12 lead, to which Mario Hezonja responded with a triple and later with a simple basket by Walter ‘Edy’ Tavares.
Alberto Abalde and Hezonja himself extended the open partial in favor of Real Madrid, which consumed the first 10 minutes with 17-21 in their locker. For the beginning of the second period, andVeteran point guard Sergio Llull entered the job to distance the visitors (19-25, 27-34) and give a wake-up call to Georgios Bartzokas’s pupils.
The local coach moved pieces from his bench and that bore fruit as soon as Moustapha Fall and especially Shaquielle McKissic became active in the low post. Thus, two free throws converted by McKissic increased the score to 36-34 at halftime, in the course of a duel that was being of many carats despite the low figures.
After the restart, the face-to-face between Vezenkov and Tavares dominated the attacking actions of a match that was still even. Real Madrid’s talented supporting players, such as Dzanan Musa and Gaby Deck, joined the Cape Verdean center and Hezonja to preserve and even increase the merengues’ juicy advantages (46-55).
Former Real Madrid player Nigel William-Goss did not give points to an Olympiacos team that survived in the third period due to its formidable work in capturing rebounds, at a rate of seven offensive and four defensive. And with 56-59 the fourth quarter started, where Facundo Campazzo had arrived with an exhibition of assists but only one throw in play.
Chus Mateo’s pupils missed a lot of that, and to make matters worse they suffered from McKissic’s scoring effervescence. The former Dreamland Gran Canaria player at the time sponsored by Herbalife was key in the fourth period, unbalancing a match of ups and downs and a comeback by an Olympiacos in need of joy.
The light had gone out for a Real Madrid entrusted to Hezonja and, to a lesser extent, Llull; None of them brought out in attack the magic that has worked so many other times before. The accumulated partial of 23-10 was the sentence for Olympiacos to finally win, that also with 3-3 passes through the ‘play-in’ zone.
The losses of the injured Usman Garuba and Andrés Feliz continue to weigh on Chus Mateo’s squad, even more so in weeks of double commitment in the Euroleague and with the Endesa League full of demands based on the level shown by Unicaja de Málaga and Valencia Basket as serious alternatives to the duopoly of Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.
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