Olympiacos falls short in San Antonio
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  A porous defense in the first quarter sentenced Olympiacos Piraeus to game-long deficits and an eventual 107-89 defeat at the hands of the host San Antonio Spurs on Friday in the Euroleague American Tour '09. Playing their first game ever in the U.S. after a 10-hour flight that landed a day-and-a-half earlier, the Reds rallied from 21 points behind to close within 91-83 midway through the final quarter, but ran out of steam right there. Olympiacos never led in the game. San Antonio scored 39 points and led by 18 after one quarter, by which time the Spurs had attempted 14 free throws, the Olympiacos total at the end of the game. After that, the game was played even. George Hill led San Antonio with 17 points. Tony Parker scored 12, Tim Duncan and Roger Mason 10 each in limited minutes. For Olympiacos, Sofoklis Schortsanitis put up 16 points in 19 minutes. Josh Childress followed with 15 points and 9 rebounds, while Von Wafter scored 10. Olympiacos plays its second and last game of the Euroleague American Tour '09 in Cleveland against the Cavaliers on Monday night. "You always gain things from games like this," Olympiacos head coach Panagiotis Giannakis said after. "It was a very strong test, against a team that has added depth and is one of the favorites to win the NBA title. I hope that they'll do well, because it's a joy watching this team and it's a privilege to play against them. The good thing is that many Euroleague teams have this chance (to play against NBA teams) and you can only benefit from these games."
Parker made two layups in an opening 11-2 run that San Antonio used to good effect thereafter. Parker and Duncan put on a show then as San Antonio poured on the points to lead by 29-9. Only Schortsianitis and Milos Teodosic had scored for Olympiacos until then, but soon Childress and Ioannis Bourousis cut the difference to 29-15. San Antonio responded with the next 7 points on the way to a 39-21 lead after 12 minutes.San Antonio's lead dwindled without being threatened as Yotam Halperin, Nikola Vujcic, Wafer and Theo Papaloukas joined the Olympiacos scorers in the second quarter to pull the Reds within 45-30. A quick 9-3 burst in which Michael Finley scored 7 points not only restored the San Antonio lead, but marked its high point of the game, 54-33. Olympiacos could only trade points from then until the first half ended 66-46.
 Olympiacos made its best run of the game to open the third quarter, and then used it to stay in shouting distance until near the finish. The Reds went inside to Schortsanitis, who responded with a layup and a pair of three-point plays. Wafer and Linas Kleiza added their own baskets for a 2-12 second-half blast-off that got the damage down to just 10 points, at 68-58. The visitors kept knocking at the door to a single-digit deficit, but Hill emerged to lead the San Antonio reserves, who held steady despite Childress and Wafer keeping Olympiacos as close as 75-64. San Antonio finished the quarter with a 9-2 run, however, pushing the difference to 17 points again, 83-66, after 36 minutes.
Olympiacos kept chipping away behind Schortsianitis and youngster Kostas Papanikolaou, who had five points in a row early in the fourth quarter. Finally, for the first time since the game's opening minutes, a triple from downtown by Patrick Beverley lowered the deficit to single digits at 89-80. Another long-range bomb, this one by Childress, had the Reds as close as 8 points to the lead, 91-83, with 6 minutes, 37 seconds left to play. That's when Roger Mason, a former Olympiacos player himself, showed up to halt the Reds' rally with 8 points in 2 minutes. He lifted San Antonio's advantage to 16 points, 101-85, with under 4 minutes left, not enough time for a comeback. Tiredness was apparent again in the Reds down the stretch as San Antonio finished off a clear victory before its home fans.
" We are pleased to play such games," Olympiacos forward Panagiotis Vasilopoulos said. "We are pleased that we can keep pace against such teams. And it can work even more, but we must be very serious in preparing ourselves to do our jobs well when the hard, official games come."
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Saturday, October 10, 2009
Rigas Dardalis, San Antonio
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