Olympiakos has won its 15th championship in the Greek Basketball League, after beating Eternal Rival Panathinaikos 3-1 in the best-of-five finals, a series that very nearly never finished.
After a very eventful pair of matches, in Games 2 and 3, both ending in victories for Olympiakos, the final match on Sunday was relatively peaceful with the Reds lifting the trophy in front of their fans at the Peace and Friendship Stadium.
On the side of the saga of clashes, first between the owners of the two giant clubs and then involving players too, there was some basketball played, though not on the level that the fans of the Greek Basketball League would have expected.
Enjoying home advantage after finishing the entire regular season unbeaten, Panathinaikos hosted Olympiakos at the Olympic Sports Hall on May 30 and won rather comfortably 80-68.
Then all hell broke loose in Game 2 at the Peace and Friendship Stadium in Piraeus on June 1, with player and coach clashes, angry exchanges and some basketball that saw the reds win 91-83 and the Greens protest at the referee decisions and at anti-Turkish chants directed at their club’s coach, Ergin Ataman.
There was more aggravation in Panathinaikos’ home court, despite the agreement of the two clubs’ owners with the government to maintain calm, when Game 3 took place on June 6, with players getting ejected with technical fouls for misbehaving and Olympiakos running away with victory (99-88) in controversial circumstances.
All that was left for Game 4 was for Olympiakos to confirm its return to the Greek basketball throne, and it did just that with an easy 85-71 win on June 8, in a domestic season that has not done Greek basketball any proud, but made Reds’ fans happy.