The national basketball team enjoyed a solid start to its Eurobasket campaign in Slovenia this week, thrashing Sweden 79-51 at Koper and defeating Russia 80-71. The team showed it can meet the high standards fans have set for it for the season, topping its group in the first week.
Greece led 8-2 at the start of the Russia game, but the opponents set the pace, leading 21-16 after the first quarter and 27-20 into the second, before the Greek defence tightened up, switching from man-to-man to zone defending.
The more experienced Greeks carried on in a similar fashion in the second half, to lead by 19 (58-39) after 25 minutes and by 15 points (62-47) after the third quarter, to take the game beyond this new generation of Russians.
After a slow start to the first game against Sweden, Greece came back to lead 25-13 and take an 18-point advantage at half-time (39-21), with Yiannis Bourousis scoring 12 points before getting substituted.
In the second half the white and blues stretched their lead to 35 points (79-44) towards the end to seal victory by 28 in the final stretch.
Vassilis Spanoulis edged out Bourousis in scoring as he notched up 13 points, while Loukas Mavrokefalidis had eight points and nine rebounds. Notably, all 12 Greece players got onto the scoresheet of the game.
Greece play Turkey early on Sunday.