By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Sertac Sanli scored a EuroLeague career-high 20 points and Rodrigue Beaubois added 19 points as Anadolu Efes beat Valencia 99 – 83 at home to capture its fifth consecutive EuroLeague win.
That was the first loss after third straight victories for Valencia. Bojan Dubljevic had 15 points and six rebounds while Derrick Williams and Klemen Prepelic dropped 13 points apiece for the visiting side that started the game strong (13 – 28 at the end of the first quarter) but fell behind for good after the break.
“I feel great,” Sanli said. “The most important thing, more than the individual performance, is that we played great again, we enjoy what we do on the court. If the defense is like this, we can win everything. If I make those shots there’s more open space for Shane [Larkin], Vase [Micic] and Simon, but I need to keep continuing to make those shots.””
Efes closed the first half with a 7 – 0 run to go the locker room with a 46 – 40 lead and then assumed a double-digit advantage, 68 – 58 by the end of the third period, thanks to consecutive 3-pointers.
The rain of buckets from beyond the arc continued for Efes that kept increasing its lead more and more as the game reached its final stretch. Ergin Ataman’s finished the night by setting a new EuroLeague club record for 3-pointers with 18 out of 31 attempts.
Vasilije Micic contributed 16 points to Efes‘ win while Shane Larkin finished with 15 points and six assists. Krunoslav Simon scored 14.
More 3-pointers please
Anadolu Efes coach Ergin Ataman said that his players could’ve set an even more impressive 3-point record, if not for some missed opportunities in open looks.
“We can make more three-pointers if we didn’t miss open shots in the first half,” Ataman said. “We moved the ball very well. This is their defensive strategy; they track on the first ball and we rotated the ball very well to find open shots. It’s a very important victory because Valencia is a very dangerous team. It’s difficult to play defense against a team that can shoot from the perimeter with their bigs and Prepelic also found important shots. But after that middle of the third quarter, we played perfect basketball.”
Photo: EuroLeague Basketball