Olympiakos celebrated a return to the Euroleague Basketball Final Four for the second year in a row after seeing off Asseco Prokom 70-86 to win their best-of-five Quarterfinals Playoffs series 3-1.

The Reds will be Greece’s only representative after both Panathinaikos and Maroussi were eliminated from the Top 16 round.

Olympiakos will join three other former continental champions – CSKA Moscow, Partizan Belgrade and Regal FC Barcelona – who will battle to become the newest Euroleague champion at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy in the French capital between May 7 and 9.

Partizan, the only qualifier not at last season’s Final Four in Berlin, too, replaces the team it knocked out, Panathinaikos.

CSKA, which has broken its own record by reaching an eighth consecutive Final Four, will seek its seventh Euroleague title.

Partizan, which lifted the continental trophy in 1992, will be making its first Final Four appearance in 12 years.

Barcelona will play its 11th Final Four – a record since the format was adopted in 1988 – and is going for its second title.

Olympiakos had been away from the Final Four for an entire decade before this, its second consecutive appearance. The Reds won their only Euroleague title in 1997 and are ready for more.

Game Four:
Asseco Prokom 70
Olympiakos 86

After winning Game 3 at home, Prokom remained a pesky opponent and never gave up, climbing from down 20 to within 7 points in the fourth quarter.
However Milos Teodosic and Josh Childress took control in a 0-11 blitz that wrapped up the win.

Olympiakos will face the winner of the Maccabi Electra/Partizan series at the Final Four in Paris next month. Prokom’s Euroleague season came to an end, but not before the Polish champs impressed many with their best campaign to date and first ever appearance in the quarterfinals.

Prokom started this game in superb form and scored the first 7 points, but Olympiakos battled right back.

Prokom had no answer for big Sofoklis Schortsanitis in the paint and the lead slowly grew as Olympiakos looked to put the game away early.

It reached 32-50 at halftime and despite numerous attempts by the hosts to climb back, it was never enough and Olympiakos celebrated in the end.  Childress paced the winners with 22 points, Teodosic tallied 15 points, 5 assists and 4 steals, Linas Kleiza added 14 points and Schortsanitis finished with 12 points, 7 rebounds and 6 fouls drawn.

David Logan led Prokom with 18 points, Qyntel Woods added 16 and Dan Ewing had 14 in defeat.

Panagiotis Giannakis was pleased with the efforts of his men following the series win.

“I have to congratulate my players, because they faced up to a team like Prokom that has a lot of enthusiasm and is very dangerous in long-range shots.

“They made some problems for us. Tonight, we controlled boards, we also played good on defence, with a lot of pressure on Asseco Prokom players.

“We were much better and efficient on open shots today than we were on Tuesday,” he continued. Scoonie Penn, was also excited with the win following the match, saying; “We have to give a lot of credit to our opponents, because they were a very hard rival in the quarterfinals. Tonight, we did exactly what we should.

“We were determined and focused from the first to the last second of the game. Our good defence, pressure and also efficient offence let us to close the series and advance to the Final Four.”

Game Three:
Asseco Prokom 81
Olympiakos 78

The first Euroleague playoff game ever played in Poland will be remembered as the first victory at this level by a Polish team after Prokom had a narrow three point win to deny Olympiakos a clean sweep.

Daniel Ewing and Qyntel Woods led the winners with 18 points each, including 4 and 3 three-point strikes, respectively.

David Logan followed with 15 points, none bigger than his running hook with 10 seconds left, putting Prokom up 80-76 and essentially sealing the victory. Jan Jagla was huge for the winners, too, with 10 points and 9 rebounds off the bench.

Josh Childress was the big gun for Olympiakos , with 20 points, but otherwise the guests found little rhythm. Nikola Vujcic came off the bench to add 13 points, while Milos Teodosic added 12 and 9 assists. Prokom piled up leads as high as 16 points in the first half before Olympiakos slowly came back, but never had a game-winning chance, and its try to force overtime fell short, forcing Game 4.