By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Defensive effort was the key factor for Anadolu Efes in the convincing 88-63 road win over Bayern Munich in Round 25 of Turkish Airlines EuroLeague.
Efes kept Bayern to just eight points in the second quarter and 25 for the first half while they scored 37 led by Chris Singleton’s 11 points including three shots from deep.
Singleton finished with 14 points as Efes kept the distance in a significantly more efficient second half. Rodrigue Beaubois scored 16 and Krunoslav Simon 11 points while Vasilije Micic dished eight dimes in addition to his nine points.
The closest Bayern got was to a nine-point margin early in the third quarter (39-30) but Efes quickly answered with eight straight points (47-30) and cruised to victory afterward whilst keeping the high level of defense in the fourth quarter as well.
Maodo Lo and Vladimir Lucic scored 14 points each for the German team which 5-16 for three compared to Efes’ 15-30.
Perfect defense
Coach Ergin Ataman noted that Efes was missing Shane Larkin due to injury and that a couple of players weren’t at 100% but the team still performed at a very high level: “Of course, I am happy. Before the game, I was saying it will be different for us because we miss our best scorer Shane Larkin, who in the first game against Bayern scored 49 points. But we showed we have a very good team, we play very good basketball. Micic started practicing yesterday after two weeks, but he knows how to play. And we played perfect defense. OK, maybe Bayern this season is not at a high level, but it is not easy to play in this court with this atmosphere. I am also happy that tonight we had around 2,000 Turkish people, and everybody will go home happy because of our victory. It is another road win, I am proud of these players, they are playing fantastic basketball.”
Micic was on the same page as the coach: “It feels great. Today the most important thing for us was to win the game. In the last couple of weeks, we missed some important players, and before the game, we did not know what kind of roster we would have. But our focus is great, which was important because I know the guys on Bayern never give up, and we continued our run.”
This win pushed Efes to a 22-3 record as they keep a safe distance from the competition at the very top of the standings while Bayern is currently at the bottom together with Zenit St Petersburg, sharing a 7-18 record.