Olympiacos Wins 93-91 in Kaunas: Bartzokas Exposes His Own Flaws, and the Real Worry Isn't the Three-Point Shot

When Giorgos Bartzokas sat down in the press room in Kaunas, the scoreboard still read 93-91 in Olympiacos' favor. The two-time EuroLeague champion coach did not open with the win. He talked about rushed choices, about "communication problems" on defense, about a game his team won without ever playing well. I have watched many press conferences like this. Nine out of ten coaches would praise the fighting spirit and call it "road-game character." Bartzokas replayed the tape in his head and pointed out exactly where the seams had torn.

This is Round 2 of the EuroLeague. Olympiacos entered the season with a brutal schedule: Baskonia, then Kaunas, then Bologna, all on the road, squeezed into a few days. Kaunas is not a comfortable destination. Zalgirio Arena is famous for an atmosphere Bartzokas himself calls "crazy," and he admitted winning there is "not easy." Winning there, however you win, is still winning. I do not watch games; I read them like an income statement in motion. And this statement had one line that forced me to look twice.

The first figure that stopped me: 5/20 from three-point range, or 25%. That number is coach-reported, not independently verified, but it is enough to reconstruct the picture. A team scored 93 points while making only five threes. That means roughly 15 points came from beyond the arc, while about 78 came from inside the arc and the free-throw line. Olympiacos won through the interior, through patience, through layups — exactly as Bartzokas admitted: when they were patient, they found open shots and layups.

The game totaled 184 points. In a league where each game lasts only 40 minutes, that is a high number. The EuroLeague is not the NBA with its 48 minutes and frantic pace. A 184 total, combined with the complaint about "rushed choices," suggests the game drifted away from the half-court defensive framework Olympiacos is built around. A game in which both teams score above 90 is usually a sign of transition basketball, of early-clock attacks. That is more worrying than the poor three-point shooting.

Then there are the "communication problems." In European basketball, that phrase almost always refers to defense: switches, help rotations, transition assignments. Conceding 91 on the road is evidence of a defensive system that lost its connections. The problem lies in the organization, not in the talent. And what stands out is that Bartzokas volunteered it, in Round 2, while his team is still unbeaten. A coach who understands that winning one game does not mean the problem is solved.

Bartzokas named Evan Fournier's two late three-pointers as the decisive factor. This is the classic pattern: dependence on one individual to create a shot in the closing minutes. And here is where I want to speak plainly. The story of "Fournier, the clutch killer" is being built from two shots. Two shots. That is far too small a sample to conclude anything about a player's form or role. The media loves clutch moments because they generate headlines, but an analyst is not permitted to turn two makes into a player profile.

The real worry is not Fournier. It is that if Fournier is the only shot-creator in crunch time, this team carries a single point of failure. Playoff opponents will load up on him. And then, with no secondary creator, Olympiacos will stand still.

Against the crowd's intuition, the poor three-point shooting is not the most serious problem. 5/20 could be variance, or it could be the result of early-clock attempts — meaning a shot-selection problem, not a shooting-talent problem. Bartzokas' repeated emphasis on "patience" hints at exactly that: the misses were largely self-inflicted, not forced by good defense. The defensive issue is the more structural one. A broken defensive connection can be fixed, but it is also the exact weakness a playoff series will punish.

There is another layer few notice. Bartzokas praised Zalgiris for having "a lot of talent this year." That praise is both true and insurance. When you call your opponent strong, you protect your team from harsh judgment over a narrow win. This is the language of a coach who understands every sentence is recorded. And when he says the win "buys time," he is admitting something larger: he knows he is being judged on results, not on process.

From an industry angle, the presence of Fournier — a former NBA player — symbolizes the flow of talent from the NBA to Europe. This is a slow but real trend: veteran players choosing or returning to European basketball, bringing credibility and star power to the EuroLeague product. Kaunas, with its atmosphere described as "crazy," reminds us that the European crowd is part of the product, a differentiator against the NBA's criticized "load management" and corporate image.

I make my living from numbers, but I only trust the numbers that keep me up at night. Tonight, what kept me up was not the 93-91 score. It was the 91 conceded, and a schedule of three road games in a few days. Olympiacos has banked two wins during the hardest stretch of its schedule, while the team is still gelling. If they sustain this through the road trip, the rest of the calendar — more home games — could create a compounding surge in the standings. But if October breaks, do not be surprised.