By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Fenerbahce Beko beat Valencia 86 – 93 on the road to not only take some payback after the first-leg overtime loss to the Spanish side at home but also get the tiebreaking advantage that may be decisive when the regular season is over. Already, the two teams are tied in the standings at 12-14 after this result.
Derrick Williams scored a team-high 22 points on 4/6 triples while draining what was proven to be a 3-point dagger for the 76 – 91 with 1:47 remaining. Valencia made a quick 9-0 run to get at a two-possession distance 86 – 91, 25 seconds before the final buzzer but two free throws by Nando De Colo were enough to keep the visiting side safe.
“It’s a testament to my teammates trusting me. At the end of the day, we got the win. It doesn’t matter how many points someone scores unless we get the win,” Williams said to EuroLeague TV. Fener wasn’t only coming from two straight losses in EuroLeague at home but also a Turkish League upset to archrival Galatasaray.
Vanja Marinkovic dropped a career-high 22 points and 5/7 3-pointers for Valencia. His team needed much more firepower to contest against Fener‘s efficiency, especially from beyond the arc. Zeljko Obradovic‘s players hit 14/25 triples to inflict heavy damage on their opponents and had a near-phenomenal 21/28 outing on 2-pointers.
“I think we played a decent game against a good opponent. We didn’t answer on defense in key moments of the game and they were better in the second half, especially at shooting. And that’s it, we have to move on, fight again for a spot in the playoffs, and we have another game in two days. We have to be ready for that,” Marinkovic said.
Kostas Sloukas and Gigi Datome added 13 points apiece for Fener while De Colo finished with 10 points plus five assists. Bojan Dubljevic (15 points) and Joan Sastre (11 points) scored in double figures for Valencia, apart from Marinkovic.
A well-oiled offense
Zeljko Obradovic saw his players producing big and successfully executing the systems he drew on the board.
“They played without two point guards and another player who is very important to them,” Obradovic said. “Congratulations to Valencia for everything they are doing in EuroLeague, also tonight they played a very good game. But I believe we won the game because we had very good shooting percentages. 75% for two, this is really high. And 56% for three. I believe today we really moved the ball well and for this we had those percentages. I believe many things were good today. It was an important game. We came into the last two minutes leading by 15, but after the last time out, 10-2.”
“It was obvious that it was a very important game for both teams,” Obradovic added. “In this EuroLeague, you need to fight in every game. We have eight more games until the end to try to see in which position we finish. Thinking about the game we played against Valencia in Istanbul, it is an absolutely different game because we had three more big guys tonight – none of them played in the game in Istanbul. The truth is that Valencia was also without two point guards and a very important player in position ‘2’ (Jordan Loyd), so we really tried to understand what is the way we need to play to pressure them and to play a good game.
Photo: EuroLeague Basketball