Bitci Baskonia beat Anadolu Efes 87-74 the Postponed game of the 20th day of the Euroleague which was played this Tuesday, March 8 at the Buesa Arena in Vitoria-Gasteiz and ended an eight game losing streak in this competition.
Baskonia got off to a better start with a 7-0 win that forced coach Ergin Atamany to bring in Shane Larkin, who with two three-pointers nipped the Barça tendency in the bud. The former Baskonia player, who found no defensive opposition, scored five consecutive triples in personal plays that turned the scoreboard around to put a 22-24 in his favor.
Efes took the first differences, while the Baskonia players tried with Matt Costello and Steven Enoch in the paint, but the five against five was a suffering for Neven Spahija’s men, unable to smoothly overcome a defense with many hands that touched many balls . The Basques reacted quickly to Shane Larkin’s sixth triple, but the Turks scored the maximum distance at the break, 36-43thanks to the 10 three-pointers converted from 17 attempts.
Simone Fontecchio and Wade Baldwin held off Shane Larkin and Vasilije Micic and Baskonia equalized in a fast paced game. The local team managed to recover the initiative with a good choral game and important triples by the Lithuanian Rokas Giedraitis, which allowed him to enter the last round with a 62-58 in favor.
Sander Raieste’s performance was key for Bitci Baskoni, as the Estonian player’s work served to stop Larkin, who lowered his percentages in the second half. In addition, several players from the Turkish team could not defend with the same aggressiveness, as they were on the verge of committing the fifth foul. For those reasons, they couldn’t control the rebound. The gap for the azulgranas opened up to 12 points (80-68) with a stellar Wade Baldwin who once again led the best moments of his team until the final victory (87-74).
Data sheet:
87 – Bitci Baskonia (22+14+26+25): Baldwin (20), Giedraitis (10), Fontecchio (15), Peters (5) and Costello (10) -initial five-, Raieste (11), Sedekerskis (3), Marinkovic (3), Granger (-), Enoch (7) and Kurucs (3).
74- Anadolu Efes (24+19+25+16): Micic (23), Beaubois (5), Bryant (-), Moerman (4) and Pleiss (4) -starting five-, Singleton (8), Larkin (21), Anderson (-), Petrusev (4), Tuncer (-), Gazi (-) and Dunston (5).
Referees: Sasa Pulk (Slovenia), Carmelo Paternico (Italy) and Amit Balak (Israel). Without eliminated.
Source: Eitb
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