Olympiacos clinch Euroleague play-off spot

Olympiacos-cropped

Despite missing three key players, Olympiacos earned a quarter-final berth courtesy of an 86-75 victory over Anadolu Efes in Athens.

Vassilis Spanoulis, Kostas Sloukas and Brent Petway were all absent due to injury on Thursday but Olympiacos were not to be denied a spot in the play-offs alongside Top 16 Group F rivals Fenerbahce Ulker and CSKA Moscow as they improved to a 9-3 win-loss record.

Olympiacos raced away with the victory following a dominant final quarter that saw the Greeks outscore their opponents by 15 points, having trailed 57-53 at the end of the third term.

Oliver Lafayette (17), Georgios Printezis (15, 12 rebounds), Ioannis Papapetrou (12), Othello Hunter (10) and Vangelis Mantzaris (10, seven assists) all posted double-digit points.

"All the injuries and having players out of the squad made the others fight with more aggressiveness to give us this very big win," said coach Giannis Sfairopoulos.

Stratos Perperoglou scored a game-high 23 points for Anadolu Efes (5-7), who remain in quarter-final contention as they occupy the fourth and final play-off spot.

Elsewhere in Group F, Fenerbahce and Olimpia Milano both won.

Turkish champions Fenerbahce rolled Unicaja Malaga 78-63 for their ninth consecutive victory.

As for Milano, they rallied from 15 points down to beat Laboral Kutxa 99-85.

Meanwhile, Alba Berlin prevailed 73-68 against Crvena Zvezda Telekom in Group E.

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