One after the other, Olympiacos Piraeus’s players step out from the locker room and into the corridor that leads to the tunnel. Sasha Vezenkov, the last to join, initiates a group embrace, with everybody shouting the team’s name before barking repeatedly as they make their way to the floor.
For the Reds’ players, this is more than a pre-game ritual. It’s the group philosophy, the way they approach basketball. And if there’s one player who epitomizes that mentality, it is Thomas Walkup.
The Olympiacos guard missed a large part of the 2024-25 campaign due to a back injury before returning for the EuroLeague Playoffs. After barely missing a game in his first three seasons at the Reds, the 32-year-old struggled to rediscover his form and was effectively a non-factor for the Greek side at the Final Four.
Walkup recharged his batteries over the summer and returned to action as Olympiacos’s starting point guard in the first stretch of the season. Another injury sidelined him for three games, but he came back for the clash away at FC Bayern Munich, a night when the Reds held the German side to just 71 points.
Yet, what followed was a home loss to AS Monaco, which scored 92 points, raising concerns about Olympiacos’s defense earlier this week. Just two days later, the hosts regrouped to lock horns with the EuroLeague leader – a Hapoel IBI Tel Aviv side that led the league in points scored with an average of 93.0 per game.
“Defensively, we are well below the level we want to be at, and the level we were at in previous years,” head coach Georgios Bartzokas stressed before Friday’s clash. “That requires good teamwork, but also self-sacrifice, determination, and doing all the little things that matter.”