By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
Anadolu Efes releases an official statement about the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Regular Season Round 13 game versus FC Barcelona held last Friday at Sinan Erdem Dome. The Turkish side was defeated, 95-93, in overtime.
Fresh off its first EuroLeague championship, the team coached by Ergin Ataman dropped a four-game winning streak after failing to hold on to a 12-point lead early in the second half. Decisions by the referees did not help, as noted by the team.
“Our biggest wish is to play a game where the better playing team wins. Unfortunately, we feel sorry when obvious mistakes shadow the competition on the court, as occurred in the game that we played last week,” is pointed out as the press release moves into the referees, “In the top European basketball league, where every win matters, during the game, in which 2020-2021 season finalists played against each other, referee performance was not as expected. Wrong decisions made by the referees in the last minutes of the game shadowed the breathtaking competition of both teams.”
The team based in Istanbul was forced down to 6-7 missing the opportunity to enter the playoffs zone for the first time since the beginning of the 2021-22 Regular Season. Plenty of room for improvement with 21 games left in the double-legged round-robin schedule leading into the Playoffs and from there to the Final Four to be held at Berlin’s Mercedes-Benz Arena.
“Our biggest wish is that there would be fewer referee mistakes in the game where every team competes in fair play to the full extend,” concludes the statement.
Italian Luigi Lamonica, Serbian Ilija Belosevic, and French Mehdi Difallah were in charge of the overtime thriller.