{"id":6961,"date":"2026-05-22T20:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T17:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=6961"},"modified":"2026-05-22T20:01:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T17:01:00","slug":"the-irresistible-olympiacos-in-the-final-four-defeated-fener-79-61","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=6961","title":{"rendered":"The irresistible Olympiacos in the Final Four &#8211; defeated Fener 79-61"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-path-to-node=\"1\">With a seminal defensive performance that left Sarunas Jasikevicius no room to maneuver, <b>Olympiacos turned Telekom Center Athens into SEF<\/b> and booked a spot for the big <b>final<\/b> on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"2\">The <b>Olympiacos of Giorgos Bartzokas<\/b> was well studied, completely focused and ready for the &#8220;exams&#8221; of the season. <\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"2\">On Friday night (5\/22), in the <b>first semifinal of the Final Four<\/b>, <b>the Piraeus team flattened title holder Fenerbahce 79-61<\/b>, and solemnly won the ticket to Sunday&#8217;s final (24\/5 at 21:00), where they will compete for the prestigious trophy against the winner of the Spanish Civil War (Real Madrid vs Valencia).<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"3\">In the midst of a <b>fantastic atmosphere created by 14.000 Olympiacos fans<\/b> at the Telekom Center in Athens, <b>the &#8220;reds&#8221; showed energy, played exemplary defense and had different protagonists in each quarter<\/b>:<\/p>\n<ul data-path-to-node=\"4\">\n<li><b data-path-to-node=\"4,0,0\" data-index-in-node=\"0\">1st Period:<\/b> Tyler Dorsey came in hot and set the initial tone for the offense.<\/li>\n<li><b data-path-to-node=\"4,1,0\" data-index-in-node=\"0\">Second Period:<\/b> Alec Peters took the baton, consistently executing Fener&#8217;s German defense.<\/li>\n<li><b data-path-to-node=\"4,2,0\" data-index-in-node=\"0\">3rd Period:<\/b> Sasha Vezenkov stepped up, essentially cleaning up the win with personal baskets.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"5\"><b>The big win for Giorgos Bartzokas, aside from qualifying, was roster management<\/b>. He used all 12 players at his disposal, distributed the playing time perfectly and kept his team fresh, without straining any of his key weapons ahead of the final.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"6\">On the other hand, <b>Fenerbahce<\/b> appeared below expectations and were trapped by the red and white vice. The Turks&#8217; perimeter execution was poor and their creation was minimal, and as a result the only ones rescued from the wreckage of Sarunas Jasikevicius were Talen Horton-Tucker and Tarik Bieberovic.<\/p>\n<h3>Game progression<\/h3>\n<p>With their classic five (Walkap, Dorsey, Papanikolaou, Vezenkov, Milutinov), Olympiacos opened the game, which saw Dorsey do things and wonders on both defense and offense to make it 12-0 at 7 minutes. The 18-12 lead in the quarter kind of did him an injustice, but Bartzokas&#8217; rotation kept the energy levels very high early in the second.<\/p>\n<p>Peters was the player who made the difference, he also made the score 26-12 at 13 minutes, he also made the score 28-12 at 15 minutes, that was the reason why Olympiacos looked like a ship sailing in calm waters. But still, Fenerbahce held on. Melli cut the deficit to nine (33-24) just before halftime and in this bad 20 minutes, the Turks had somehow &#8220;survived&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Dorsey &#8211; Vezenkov entered the second half with amazing momentum, 42-24 at 22\u2032 led to a timeout by Yasikevicius who wanted to cut this 9-0 lead. Not only did he cut it, but he turned 44-24 into 44-34 before Vezenkov scored four straight to make it +14 and keep the Piraeus team at bay. Fournier and Vezenkov each hit a 3-pointer to make it 54-39 at 29 minutes and everything was working to perfection for the Piraeus team.<\/p>\n<p>The Turkish counterattack came early in the fourth quarter. An 0-8 run led to a 56-49 lead at 32 minutes, with Bartzokas calling a timeout and Milutinov&#8217;s free throws resulting in a +9 lead. Peters made it 63-52 with a beautiful read and finish near the basket, and soon after made a 3-pointer for a +14 that decided the game, definitively and irrevocably, in an unprecedented celebration.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Referees<\/strong>: Radovic, Peruga, Nedovic<\/p>\n<p><strong>The DETAILS<\/strong>: 18-12, 33-24, 56-41, 79-61<\/p>\n<p><strong>Olympiacos<\/strong> (Bartzokas): Walkup 2 (5 rebounds, 5 assists), Ward 10 (3\/6 2-pointers, 1\/2 3-pointers, 1\/2 free throws, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, Vezenkov 16 (5\/9 2-pointers, 2\/4 3-pointers, 5 rebounds), Papanikolaou, Dorsey 15 (2\/5 2-pointers, 2\/6 3-pointers, 5\/6 free throws), Peters 17 (4\/4 2-pointers, 3\/3 3-pointers), Milutinov 6 (13 rebounds), Joseph, Hall, McCisick 1, Jones 2, Fournier 10 (0\/3 2-pointers, 3\/9 3-pointers, 1\/2 free throws, 4 rebounds, 4 assists)<\/p>\n<p><strong>FENERBACHTSE<\/strong> (Jasikevicius): Baldwin 10 (4\/7 2-pointers, 0\/3 3-pointers, 2\/4 free throws, 5 rebounds, 6 assists), Mellie 7 (2\/3 2-pointers, 1\/5 3-pointers, 4 rebounds, 2 assists), Horton-Tucker 16 (3\/4 2-pointers, 1\/7 3-pointers, 7\/8 free throws, 7 rebounds, 3 assists), De Colo 6 (2), Biberovic 17 (2\/3 2-pointers, 4\/9 3-pointers, 1\/1 shooting, 6 rebounds), Bitim, Jantunen (0\/6 shooting), Hall, Silva 2, Colson, Birch 3 (4 rebounds)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Olympiacos team stats<\/strong>: 17\/32 2-pointers, 11\/27 3-pointers, 12\/20 free throws, 43 rebounds (36 defensive &#8211; 7 offensive), 16 assists, 3 steals, 9 turnovers, 19 fouls<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fenerbahce&#8217;s team stats<\/strong>: 13\/26 2-pointers, 8\/36 3-pointers, 11\/15 free throws, 34 rebounds (26 defensive &#8211; 8 offensive), 14 assists, 5 steals, 3 blocks, 9 turnovers, 21 fouls<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With a seminar defensive performance that left no room for Sarunas Jasikevicius, Olympiacos turned the Telekom Center Athens into a &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greece"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}