By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Olimpia Milano erased a 15-point halftime deficit and beat Anadolu Efes 83 – 77 on the road to lock homecourt advantage in the EuroLeague playoffs.
Sergio Rodriguez engineered Milano’s comeback with 12 points and eight assists for a team-high 17 PIR. “Honestly, I think it was the best game of the season,” Rodriguez said. “Not only because we’re playing the EuroLeague champions, but we’re also playing here in Istanbul, they are a great team. But most importantly, we came back from a big deficit, we showed character and at this point in the year, it’s very important to go up towards the end of the season.”
Rodriguez dropped eight points through four minutes in the third period as his team approached 54 – 53 after trailing 51 – 36 at the break. Kyle Hines was the one to make the go-ahead basket at the end of the quarter to put Milano up 61 – 62.
The two teams traded blows and leads until the last five minutes. With the score 70 – 69 for Efes, Gigi Datome (14 points) and Shavon Shields (13 points) combined for 0 – 7 run and Milano retained a distance beyond shooting range for the rest of the match.
Vasilije Micic had 27 points and five assists for Efes, while Adrien Moermann added 16 points plus nine rebounds. The two of them finished the first half with 15 and 13 points respectively to lead an offensive clinic by the Turkish side that shot 10 – 15 3-pointers at the break.
Everything turned upside down though after the break since Milano quickly balanced the game and then won it down the stretch.
“The game changed in the second half,” Efes coach Ergin Ataman said. “We stopped playing, we didn’t move the ball, we stopped playing defense and Milano played great, so congratulations to them.”
A complete transformation
Milano coach Ettore Messina saw his players having a different mindset in their return from the locker room and gave them all the credit for shifting the balance
“Players win games, this is the reality,” Messina said. “One more time, this has been a game that has been won by the players because they came and they played with the cohesion that we missed in the last game in Tel Aviv and we missed in the first half today. They played with personality, they played excellent defense in the second half, but more importantly, they moved the ball unselfishly on offense and everybody contributed. I am not saying this to give them lip service. I really believe that for coaches it’s a success when you don’t complicate the game. They just got together, they talked amongst themselves, they figured out a way to regain confidence. The most important thing is not the win…. The most important thing is that we found the cohesion that we usually had this season and in the past season and this is a sign of hope for the future…. Watching from the sidelines, I felt the poise of the team. They was no rush, there was patience. When you have good players like we have, and great shooters like we have. If they play with poise, of course we become a very good team. But, unfortunately, that doesn’t happen all the time because there are also your opponents. Today we beat the EuroLeague champion. So it’s a great day and we move on. We use the win to find some positiveness and some confidence for the future.”