By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Anadolu Efes finally had their marquee names on the court and despite not being their real self yet, they got the 94-60 win over Zalgiris Kaunas. The Lithuanians remain the only EuroLeague team without a win and not having Emmanuel Mudiay available for the game didn’t help.
“It was very important for us that tonight with Simon and Micic coming back to the team, we had more players at the guard positions”, said Efes coach Ergin Ataman after the game. “This is very important for our basketball that we played in the last three years. We took 44 rebounds tonight, which is important for our running game. We shared the ball, we played great basketball, like a champion. We remembered that we are the champions, and we made 26 assists, another key for our offense. And we played with great energy and great confidence. This is a marathon. We started bad with many problems, many injuries. but we will come back soon.”
Tibor Pleiss was the top scorer with 17 for the winning side, Filip Petrusev scored 14 points and the duo of Vasilje Micic and Krunoslav Simon had 11 points each. The hosts had a 44-29 halftime lead and never looked back, dominating the game in every aspect.
“We know Efes would go strong tonight”, said Zalgiris coach Jure Zdovc. “All the injuries that we have it is hard to keep the rhythm 40 minutes with this team. We missed a lot of open shots, they scored some tough shots, and after we just collapsed. Not even close to what we want. Congratulations to Efes.”
Lukas Lekavicius and Arturas Milaknis had 14 points each for the losing side. That was the second win of Efes in seven games so far in the season and as Pleiss said: “Today we made our shots where we had some problems in the last few games. Today was excellent. Of course, there are still some things we need to work on, but this was definitely a step up from the last few weeks.”