By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Baskonia saw a 16-point lead getting almost completely erased in four minutes down the stretch before ultimately getting the 84 – 79 road win over Olimpia Milano to snap a three-game losing skid.
Witht he score 79 – 81 for Baskonia and 11 seconds to play, Pierria Henry beat multiple Milano players to pull off a tough layup-and-one that pretty much clinched the victory of his team. Henry and the rest of Baskonia led 63 – 79 with four and a half minutes to play, until Milano made quite the comeback attempt that was left incomplete.
Henry scored 10 out of his 15 points in the fourth period while also posting eight assists and making up for his seven turnovers with the win-sealing play in the last seconds. Zoran Dragic scored 16 points and Tonye Jekiri notched a double-double of 12 points and 12 rebounds.
“You gotta give respect to Milan,” Herny said. “They’re a hard-fighting team, well-coached team. They’ve got a lot of heart and pride and a lot of veterans on their team, so it’s a big road win for us. But I’ve gotta give praise to my teammates and coaching staff for a great game plan and my teammates for executing and fighting through adversity and just believing in one another throughout the entire game.”
For Milano trailed for the vast majority of the game and tried to dig its way out of a 16-point hole in the final lap. Yet the efforts of Kevin Punter (15 points), Malcolm Delaney (12 points, including five during Milano’s comeback) and Gigi Datome (11 points) weren’t enough for Ettore Messina’s team. The Red Shoes both struggled to produce efficiently while failing to halt the damage made by their opponents.
No stops, no party
Olimpia Milano coach Ettore Messina acknowledged Baskonia’s superiority in the game and highlighted the defensive issues his team had in particular.
“Baskonia deserved to win,” Messina said. “They played better than us, they played harder than us and they set the tone right off the first two-three possessions when they jumped to a 0-6 lead. They attacked us with triple penetration all game long and we were not able to set a decent defense against their penetrations and on offense, we were not sharp as many other times, we went up and down. But the problem was defensively we could not get stops and we could not get any flow of the game in our hands.”
Photo: EuroLeague Basketball