Aris Routs AEK 88-58 at Nick Galis Hall

By Taki Panos

There is a particular sound the old Alexandreio makes when Aris are rolling, half roar and half exhale, and on Saturday it barely let up. Vassilis Spanoulis's team led AEK 23-10 after one quarter, 42-21 at halftime and 64-35 going into the fourth, then strolled out of a sold-out Nick Galis Hall with an 88-58 win in the second round of the Stoiximan Greek Basket League.

Aris needed this one more than the scoreline lets on. They had opened the season with a road loss at Karditsa, as TyposThes reminded everyone, and an 0-2 start in front of that crowd would have made for a long week in Thessaloniki. Instead both clubs now sit at 1-1, per SDNA, and only one of them looked like it enjoyed getting there.

The night belonged to Matt Morgan. The American guard scored 25 points and went 6 of 9 from three, a performance in.gr called his best in Aris colors by a wide margin. The three that closed the first half made it 42-21, and another midway through the fourth pushed the lead to 77-46. Some shooters need a few to fall before they get brave. Morgan looked brave from the opening tip.

Big man Robinson-Earl did the early damage before Morgan took over, scoring 11 of his 15 points in the first quarter as Aris jumped to 10-2 and then 19-6. AEK missed its first five threes, and nobody in the building was expecting the sixth to go in either. Nenad Dimitrijevic ran the show with 8 assists, the kind of quiet line that tells you the ball kept finding the right man.

Now, for those of us who follow this family from the other side of the Atlantic, here is the part that made me put my coffee down. Kostas Antetokounmpo scored six straight points in the second quarter to stretch the lead to 38-16, and finished with 10 points on 5 of 6 inside the arc in limited minutes, according to the in.gr box score. His older brother Thanasis Antetokounmpo added a bucket of his own off the bench. Two Antetokounmpos in yellow and black, playing in front of a full house in Greece's second city, is a sentence I never expected to type.

The most famous Antetokounmpo, of course, is a long way from Thessaloniki. Giannis is working through his first preseason with the Heat after the summer trade to Miami, and he told reporters, per ClutchPoints, that he is getting more comfortable but is not all the way there yet. It is a funny autumn for the brothers: the one everybody knows is learning a new system in Florida while Thanasis and Kostas share a locker room in Greece. Anyone who knows the story of Giannis's rise knows this family has never worried much about the scenery, only the work.

As for Spanoulis, he spent his playing days making huge shots look like routine business, and on the evidence of Saturday he coaches the same way. Aris defended with real bite, turned AEK's mistakes into easy offense, and never let the game drift. A Vasilis Toliopoulos three made it 52-26 early in the third, and back-to-back dunks early in the fourth stretched the lead to its high point of 33 at 71-38.

AEK will want to burn the tape. Dragan Sakota's team shot 3 of 22 from three, according to SDNA, and only Nelly Joseph, who scored 20 points and kept winning his battles near the rim, looked interested in a fight. It is far too early in October to write anybody off, and Sakota has walked away from worse nights than this one. Still, a 30-point loss on the road is the kind of result that keeps a coach up past midnight.

The rest of the weekend had a familiar shape. A few hours later Panathinaikos went to Patras and beat Promitheas 84-59, two days after their EuroLeague win over Fenerbahce, as SKAI reported, while Peristeri came back from 17 down to edge Heraklis 91-89 in overtime, per Pontos News. If you are keeping a mental list of the top basketball clubs in Greece, Aris just made a loud case to be on it.

There is no time to savor it. Aris host Derthona in the EuroCup on Wednesday, October 14, at 20:00 Greek time, according to Sport24, then welcome Maroussi on Saturday, October 17, while AEK host Mykonos the same afternoon. My advice to Spanoulis, for what a guy on a bar stool in Boston is worth: bottle whatever Morgan had for dinner.

And if you happen to be in Thessaloniki for one of those games, do it right and eat well first. Our list of the best restaurants in Thessaloniki is a good start, and for more stories like this one, keep an eye on our Greek Sports section.