Olympiacos beat Red Star in Belgrade on Wednesday night and secured home advantage for the Euroleague play-offs.
The Greek champions needed to go to overtime in a low-scoring game to beat their Serbian hosts 66-64, thanks to a last-ditch effort by Giorgos Printezis 3.2 seconds before the end of overtime.
Chief Vassilis Spanoulis did not have a good night and Matt Lojeski was absent. Yet, Dimitris Agravanis (16 points) and Costas Papanikolaou (17 points) were impressive, adding to the Reds excellent defensive performance.
Leading 30-17 at half time, Olympiacos seemed to have an easy win. However, Red Star came back in the second half scoring 18 unanswered points halfway. The Greek team recovered and forced the game to overtime at 58-58.
At the end of halftime Printezis gave Olympiacos the 19th win in 27 games.
Olympiakos do arch rivals Panathinaikos a favor
With their win, Olympiacos did a favor to “eternal enemies” Panathinaikos as they beat one of the Greens’ rivals for the fourth spot, one day after the Athens team sealed their own play-off spot with a home win over Armani Milano.
On Tuesday Panathinaikos beat depleted Armani 74-61 in Athens in a game that offered fans very little quality given the fact that the Italians arrived in Athens with just seven players fit to contest this Euroleague game.
It was an easy win, with the Greens’ mind being in Spain where on Thursday (tonight) they will play against Baskonia.
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