By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Facu Campazzo couldn’t have pictured a much better EuroLeague season debut in front of the Crvena Zvezda fans.
Campazzo scored 22 points (one short of tying his career-high of 23) on 7-8 shots and dished out seven assists as Zvezda triumphed over reigning EuroLeague champion Anadolu Efes 92 – 75. It was a win of huge importance for Red Star that improved to 12-15 and received a boost in its pursuit of a playoff spot.
“I feel happy,” Campazzo said. His team overpowered Efes 26 – 8 in the fourth period to get the victory. “We wanted to win so bad after a couple of tough losses. We needed to play good as a team, and I think we did that tonight. We’ve got to play like tonight, with our defense as our DNA. Don’t worry about our offense, because we’ve got a very dangerous team on offense; we can score in many ways.”
“The fans were crazy,” he added. “We’re like a family.”
Ante Zizic scored 16 points and Rodrigue Beaubois had 15 points for Efes that was missing injured star guards Vasilije Micic and Shane Larkin. The Turkish side was also without head coach Ergin Ataman in the last 4:30 minutes after he got ejected with a second technical foul for protesting.
Efes actually led 68 – 70 early in the fourth period behind some stellar shooting from afar. Campazzo took over to lead Zvezda to a 15-2 run that turned everything upside down. After Ataman’s ejection, the visiting squad further collapsed and their opponents ultimately cruised to win.
“Without point guards [Vasilije Micic and Shane Larkin were out injured], it was difficult for us to execute our offense,” said Efes assistant Yakup Sekizkok. “But for 32 or 33 minutes, we were in the game. We are satisfied with the fight and hustle of our players on the court.”
In the end, Zvezda finished with 25 assists in one of its top performances this season. “We played this game how we wanted to play,” Zvezda coach Dusko Ivanovic said. “Aggression on defense, and so much confidence and patience. Many easy baskets on the fastbreak, which gave us confidence with this kind of play.”