Euroleague: Brose takes Madrid to the buzzer
Euroleague Week 9 got off to a dramatic start as three of five contests were decided by fewer than four points. Winless Brose led for more than half their game with Real Madrid before falling 76:73 on a Dontaye Draper triple at the buzzer. Barcelona Regal held off BC Khimki Moscow Region, 71:69, to extend their impressive home-court Top 16 winning streak to 22-games, setting a Euroleague record in the process. The last time the Spanish club lost a Top 16 game in Barcelona was March 30, 2006. Maccabi Electra continued their season revival winning their third contest in four weeks with a 62:66 road win over Caja Laboral Vitoria.
The other two matches weren’t quite on par with those thrillers, as Olympiacos Piraeus pounded Besiktas JK in a 60:79 road win and Montepaschi Siena stayed a game behind Regal in Group F with a beat-down of Fenerbahce Ulker, 87:69, at home.
GROUP E
Real Madrid – Brose Baskets Bamberg, 76:73
Maik Zirbes goes high for a deuce over Real Madrid on Thursday.
In the first quarter, neither team ever got ahead by more than one shot, whether that was a free throw, a deuce, or a three-ball. There were no long scoring runs and no long stretches where neither team scored; it was non-stop hoops with multiple lead changes and solid defense. At the end of the first 10 the hosts where clinging to a single point advantage.
Brose struck first in the second with an Anton Gavel triple, which was countered by Madrid with a jumper to tie things up at 23. Gavel dropped in another three-ball, only to have that also covered with a deuce. For the third rip down the hardwood Gavel demonstrated that despite their 0-8 record, the boys from Bamberg didn’t travel all the way to Madrid to not put up a good fight, and ripped the cords with another triple, putting Brose up by four. Marcus Slaughter shook the rim with a dunk to cut the lead in half, then Brose ran off six unanswered to get up by eight at the mid-way point of the quarter, 27:35. After exchanging baskets, including Gavel’s 10th and 11th points of the quarter, Madrid closed the half by knocking down the last six points to get back to within two, 39:41, at the break.
Madrid hit the first five of the second half before Brose found the basket, completing an 11:0 run that had RM up by three, 44:41. From that point the third quarter was another give and take with the clubs countering each other, jumping in front, and then falling behind. This time though, there was a two-minute stretch that the clubs couldn’t hit, but then when Rudy Fernandez nailed a three-ball to snap the drought, Sharrod Ford went down and countered, then the clubs exchanged deuces to account for 10 points in less than a minute. The guests got up by four, Madrid hit three of four singles to cut the lead to one, then Gavel nailed a jumper at the buzzer to send the contest to the final 10 with three points separating them, 57:60.
Sharrod split a pair of singles and then Karsten Tadda dropped in a three-pointer to put give the visitors a seven-point margin, 57:64. The next time Brose would put points on the board would be over four minutes later and in the meantime, the Group E leader would put up 13 straight to build a six-point margin of their own, 70:64 with four minutes to play. Of course, with the way this game had been going, it’s easy to speculate that Brose still had a bit of fight left in them and Matt Walsh proved it to be true with a jumper and a triple to pull back to within one. Fernandez hit a floater, then fouled Walsh at the other end, sending him to the line for a pair of charity tosses, which he connected on to again bring the German club to within one, 72:71. With 24 seconds on the clock, Dontaye Draper split a pair of free throws and seconds later Maik Zirbes knotted the contest at 73 with a lay-up. As the clock ran down, Fernandez drove the lane and drew the defense on him, so he kicked the ball to Draper standing outside the arc and just prior to the horn sounding he launched a shot that sliced the cords giving Madrid their eighth win and Brose their ninth straight loss.
Carroll was the only player on the Real Madrid roster that scored in double figures, as he tallied 11 on the day. Fernandez ended up with nine, all in the second half, and six in the final minutes. He also hauled in 11 rebounds, dished off 4 assists and picked up 4 steals on the day.
Gavel was game-high with 15 points and 5 assists for Brose. Zirbes added 14 points and 6 rebounds, Jeremiah Massey dropped in 11 and Walsh put up 10 points and grabbed 6 rebounds, coming off the bench.
GROUP F
FC Barcelona Regal – BC Khimki Moscow Region, 71:69
FC Barcelona Regal stayed at the top of Group F with an 8-1 record after holding off the visiting BC Khimki Moscow Region, 71:69. Khimki drops to 5-4 on the season, but remains in fourth place, one game ahead of both Maccabi Electra and Caja Laboral at 4-5. The win is Barcelona’s 22nd consecutive home Top 16 victory, establishing a new record in that category in the Euroleague.
The clubs kept things close for the better part of the first quarter with the score reading 11:10, with Barça up, just before the eight minute mark. From there, Regal’s Pete Mickeal and Erazem Lorbek connected on triples, and Mickeal got a jumper, leading the hosts on a trip to the end and a 10:6 finish bringing the tally to 21:16 after the first 10 were played. Khimki got down early and while they wouldn’t let Regal extend their lead past nine early or eight later on, they also couldn’t get any closer than four before letting things get away from them again. Marcelinho Huertas dropped in a lay-up as time expired on the half to put Barcelona up 10, 44:34. Neither team scored for nearly three minutes in the third 10, and when they did it was Regal adding four more to their advantage. Khimki sliced the lead to eight with six unanswered of their own. Two triples with a dunk in the middle by Barça surrounded two deuces by the guests to push the lead up, but not let it get out-of-hand. As they prepared for the final 10 the scoreboard showed a comfortable 12-point lead on the left side, 60:48. While things looked solid for the home club, Khimki made sure it was anything put an easy time. Three minutes in, with the margin still 12, Khimki took off on an 0:8 run that cut the deficit for the guests to four, 64:60. A Mickeal jumper and a triple at each end of the court, including the fifth by Juan Carlos Navarro on the night, pushed the space to six, then nearly three minutes went by without any scoring before Paul Davis got Khimki back to within four, 69:65. With just over a minute to play, Navarro dropped in two singles to make it a minimum two-possession game. David and Kresimir Loncar put up one final push for the guest, pulling within two, but running out time.
Navarro was game-high with 19 points on five triples. Ante Tomic added 16 points and 5 rebounds and Lorbek put up 11 points. Davis led Khimki with 18 points and 9 rebounds, while the duo of Vitaly Fridzon and Zoran Planinic contributed 12 points apiece.
Montepaschi Siena – Fenerbahce Ulker Istanbul, 87:69
Montepaschi Siena strengthened their position in Group F with an 87:69 win over a struggling Fenerbahce Ulker. The win keeps Siena one back from Barcelona at 7-2, the loss drops Ulker to 2-7. This was Fenerbahce’s and their new head coach Ertuglu Erdogan’s first Euroleague game since Simone Pianigiani resigned last week.
Ulker got out first and build a small lead before a pair of Siena triples moved the hosts out front. By the end of the first 10 Siena was up 21:18. Ulker stayed with their hosts for the first part of the second, then had trouble protecting the ball, giving up scoring opportunities that Siena was more than happy to convert into their own. By the time the buzzer sounded on the second frame, Montepaschi had pulled away, 49:35. As the second half started the home club was able to extend their lead to 19, 55:36. Ulker got things moving finally and ran off 11 unanswered to get to within eight. Shortly after they were able to cut it even further, 56:50, before Montepaschi got their own game back on track and put the lead back into the double digits. As the fourth frame was set to begin, the hosts had a 12-point advantage, 65:53. Aleksandar Rasic took advantage of the opportunity to come off the bench and try to earn some additional playing time by tallying two three-pointers as the last quarter started, earning Siena an 18-point margin. Ulker was able to cut the gap to 12 again, but as quickly as they did, Montepaschi extended it back to almost 20, with no intention of letting it get any closer so that they can keep pace with Barça in the standings.
Rasic ended the night four of four from behind the arc with a pair of jumpers thrown in to tally up 16 to lead Siena. Daniel Hackett added 13, Bobby Brown and David Moss dropped in 12 each. Bojan Bogdanovic was game-high for Ulker with 22 points, and Bo McCalebb added 10 points and 5 rebounds.
Caja Laboral Vitoria – Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv, 62:66
Maccabi Electra moved one step closer to advancing out of the Top 16 round with a big fourth quarter to win 62:66 on the road. The victory improves Electra to 4-5, while it means a fifth straight loss for Caja as their hopes of moving on are looking more and more bleak as the weeks tick off.
The shots went up, but the points didn’t in the first frame as both clubs had trouble finding the cords. When Electra’s Guy Pnini did connect on a triple, it was the first in the 14 attempts that were made by both teams. At the end of the first, the guests were holding a 10:11 lead. Maccabi pushed hard early in the second and built a five-point advantage. Back-to-back three-pointers by the hosts gave them the lead, but not for long as the clubs exchanged the lead until Devin Smith knocked down a floater as the half ended with a Caja advantage of three, 31:28.
Early in the third Caja got up by seven off a dunk and a jumper, but Electra countered them with points in the paint. The hosts closed out the third with a 6:2 mini-run to take a four-point lead into the final frame, 47:43.
The last 10 was as back and forth as any contest prior, with the lead changing hands almost every time down the court. Caja held the advantage with two minutes to play at 62:59, but Maccabi tallied the next five to hold the lead, 62:64, with 24.7 seconds remaining. Caja’s Thomas Heurtel got off a triple attempt, but in the scramble for the rebound a jump-ball was called giving the ball back to the guests. The hosts were forced to foul David Logan, who dropped in two singles with 11 seconds remaining, locking up the win for the visitors.
Smith was top man on the night with 20 points for Maccabi Electra, while Logan contributed 16. Shawn James scored 11 and picked up 10 rebounds, and Ricky Hickman accounted for 10 points and 6 rebounds. Maciej Lampe had a big night for Caja Laboral, scoring 19 and grabbing 12 rebounds. Fernando San Emeterio added 11 points.
Besiktas JK Istanbul – Olympiacos Piraeus, 60:79
After starting the Top 16 1-3, the defending Euroleague champions have run off five straight wins, with their latest victims being winless Besiktas JK. The 60:79 win in Istanbul bumps the Reds to 6-3 and sole ownership of the No. 3 spot in Group F, only one game behind Siena at 7-2, and two games behind group leader, FC Barcelona Regal at 8-1. Olympiacos squares off against Barcelona in Peace and Friendship Stadium in Piraeus in Week 10 in what should prove to be an exciting contest to watch.
The hosts, still looking for their first ever Euroleague Top 16 victory, earned an early lead and held a two-point advantage at the end of the first 10, 15:13. The game changed hands for good in the second frame as the Reds outscored their hosts 15:25 in the period, building a top margin of 12 before settling with a 30:38 lead heading into the 20-minute break. In quarter “three-pointer”, the clubs got comfortable behind the arc and took to the long-ball. Besiktas cut the margin to four, then Olympiacos extended back to double-digits. Heading into the last 10 the Reds were up nine, 51:60. Besiktas not only couldn’t mount any type of comeback in the last frame, they were basically shut down, as the guests controlled the tempo of the contest and played solid defense. Olympiacos out-scored Besiktas 9:19 in the last 10 and late in the quarter hit their biggest margin of 20, before settling in with 19, 60:79.
Josh Powell led the way for the reigning champs with 16 points, Kostas Papanikolaou added 11. Gasper Vidmar (7 rebounds) and Patrick Christopher contributed 13 points for Besiktas, while the duo of Randal Falker (9 rebounds) and Ricky Minard each added 11 points.
Euroleague Group E
This Week’s Matches[matches league_id=20 match_day=9 group=E template=summary dateformat=”M. j, Y”]
Standings[standings league_id=20 group=E show_website=false template=nolink]
Next Week’s Matches[matches league_id=20 match_day=10 group=E template=sumnoscore dateformat=”M. j, Y”]
Euroleague Group F
This Week’s Matches[matches league_id=20 match_day=9 group=F template=summary dateformat=”M. j, Y”]
Standings[standings league_id=20 group=F show_website=false template=nolink]
Next Week’s Matches[matches league_id=20 match_day=10 group=F template=sumnoscore dateformat=”M. j, Y”]