It was a defensive masterpiece that allowed Olimpia to defeat Olympiacos – sweeping the season’s series by the way – 66-57 in a hard-fought battle. Olimpia led for the length of the game, starting it with a 13-2 run. Then Olympiacos deliberately slowed-down the tempo in order to force Olimpia playing a different game, “because they have an explosive team, very talented, particularly in the offense and this game was decided by guard plays, guys like Mike James,” Olympiacos’ head coach David Blatt said at the end. Olimpia overcame an offensively challenged 4-point second period. “We probably set some futility records”, Coach Pianigiani said. But Olimpia also stayed in the game, defended well, was still tied at halftime, in an uncharacteristic 23-23, and exploded in the third, led by a monumental effort by Mike James, who scored 27 points and had six assists all in the second half. Olimpia led by as many as 16 points. Coach Pianigiani didn’t sub much in the fourth quarter, trusting his rebounding specialists – Jeff Brooks and Kaleb Tarczewski grabbed 10 rebounds each, and they allowed Olympiacos one single offensive rebound in the entire second half -, Mike James for setting the tempo and using for a time also a small ball line-up featuring three guards and Vlado Micov at the 4-spot. Once Olimpia got away, Olympiacos never really came back. “That is positive for us. But we need experience for these kind of games, these kind of moments. This is a good game to show us what kind of mistakes we do, and how far we have to go to get to another level,”, Coach Pianigiani said. In the process, Mike James became the 11th player to compile a 500-point EuroLeague season and surpassed 1.500 points for his career, including an amazing 4-point play in the second half.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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