By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Shane Larkin scored 22 points and dished out six assists as Anadolu Efes beat Maccabi Tel Aviv 105 – 91 to register its second consecutive EuroLeague win and make a big step in the race to make the Play-In.
“The most important thing is winning the game,” said Larkin. His team moved to 11-15 playing this home game vs. Maccabi in Riga, Latvia due to security reasons. “The more we got closer to the end we communicated with the bench about getting also the point differential. Important win to go in the right direction, for our confidence and for sticking together.”
Larkin produced eight of his points over the last nine minutes to lift Efes to the win. Ercan Osmani emerged as an x-factor for the Turkish side during the stretch with 13 points and seven rebounds overall and two consecutive buckets during a 9 – 2 run that put his team up 88 – 80 with 5:19 to play.
Maccabi, that was without star guard Lorenzo Brown (back) was unable to respond and fell behind by double figures down the stretch. Wade Baldwin stood out from the Yellows with 26 points plus five assists.
“Defensively we have to be more focused,” said Maccabi coach Oded Kattash. His team dropped to 13-13.”We talked about it at halftime that we aren’t using our fouls the right way. We can find excuses for everything but we have to be more focused and play a complete game to beat Efes here.”
Rodrigue Beaubois contributed 20 points for Efes. “The guys did another amazing job,” said Efes coach Tomislav Mijiatovic. “They showed we have this Efes character in us fought for 40 minutes against a team that never gives up and just keeps coming . our coaches did an amazing job preparing the game and the fans in the Efes Riga edition showed up and made us feel really comfortable. I thank them for that