By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Five players scored in double figures for Baskonia as the team routed ASVEL Villeurbanne 91 – 66 to grab one of their biggest victories this EuroLeague season.
Simone Fontecchio and Rokas Giedraitis scored 15 points apiece for Baskonia while Steven Enoch posted 14 points plus five rebounds. Matt Costello delivered 13 points plus six boards and Wade Baldwin had 13 points plus six assists to complete the winning equation for the Basque side.
“We’re stringing together some wins, we had a big one against Barcelona in the ACB and followed up with this one against a competitive ASVEL team, and we’ve got to keep this streak going,” Baldwin said. He was named game MVP after finishing with a team-high 19 PIR. “We had a team meeting to fix some things, call each other out, and it’s been showing in the past two games. We need to keep this trend going. We’re stringing things together, the guys are finding rhythm, and we’re having fun playing basketball.”
Chris Jones led ASVEL with 17 points. After a balanced first half (45-44), the French side was overwhelmed by Baskonia, falling behind 63 – 52 and with three minutes remaining in the third quarter and then completely crumbling down. With the score 74 – 60 early in the fourth period, the hosts made a 10-0 run to turn the match into a blowout.
Baskonia shut down ASVEL’s weapons and particularly Elie Okobo. The leading scorer of ASVEL and one of the top performers this EuroLeague season had a season-low-tying seven points on 2-8 shots.
The only memorable thing from this ASVEL’s game was perhaps the extended use of NBA superprospect Victor Wembanayama. The 17-year-old big man had played more than in any other game this season (21:30) and scored a career-high 10 points (1-8 2-pointers, 2-5 triples) while grabbing five rebounds and blocking the ball three times.
“We started the first half scoring 44 points, for them it’s the type of game they like,” ASVEL coach TJ Parker said. “We can see all their wins are in high scoring games; when they win they average 83 points per game, when they lose they average 63. We knew at halftime it would be a tough test because the game was right where they wanted it. The second half they came out really strong, lots of intensity, and we weren’t playing the offense we wanted to.”
Putting the coach’s philosophy to work
There were a lot of things that Baskonia coach Neven Spahija liked in this game but perhaps nothing pleased him more than the balanced offensive performance of his team
“I emphasized defense as the most important thing in the second half,” Spahija said. “We gave up 44 points in the first half with so many bad decisions, baskets and one. In the last 20 minutes none of that happened so I have to give credit to our players for their good performance, and we still played good offense at the same time. [Having five scorers in double digits] That’s my basketball, that’s what I want as a coach. It’s not easy, but to rotate, play with the bench more, that’s the perfect style for us. This time we responded and we need to continue. I give credit to my players.”
Photo: EuroLeague Basketball