By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Getting down only in the first quarter, trailing by nine points (19-10), Bayern Munich quickly recovered and answered against Crvena Zvezda. The German side went on to get the 74-66 victory, improving its record to 12-15, one victory away from the Play-Ins stage in the 12th spot.
Bayern’s frontline was the reason why Pablo Laso’s team managed to get over the Serbian red-and-white side. Devin Booker was the highest scorer on his team, ending with 22 points and 6 boards. “My family is in town, so they gave me an extra boost and motivation. We played good on defense”, he said.
He was followed by Serge Ibaka, who was close to a double-double with 12 points and 8 rebounds. “We knew coming here how important was this game tonight, we have to focus on the next one. We need to play together, when we do that is always very difficult to beat us”, he added.
“I think it was very important for us to come back after the windows, being ready to play. We knew we had to set up defensively. [Vladimir] Lucic played great, he was very good on both ends of the floor, always looking for the right situation”, Pablo Laso commented after the win.
Joel Bolomboy was close to a double-double in the loss with 11 points and 9 rebounds. Nobody on Crvena Zvezda – without Milos Teodosic – scored more than 13 points in the away defeat, as Javonte Smart put that amount up. Yago dos Santos had an all-around performance of 7 points, 8 rebounds, and 5 assists, but shot 2/9 FG.
“Defensively we were more or less okay, but offensively we had some moments where we were struggling. We had some open shots we could score, it was a good game from both teams but Bayern was better on details”, Ioannis Sfairopoulos commented after the loss.
Twisting his left ankle with 4:52 minutes to go in the fourth quarter, Isaac Bonga was forced to leave the court of the Bmw Park in Munich. It looked severe for the German small forward, but cameras captured him back on the home side’s bench in the final seconds of the game.
Back on November 2, Crvena Zvezda interrupted an ongoing four-game losing streak at the beginning of the 2023-24 EuroLeague Regular Season by beating Bayern Munich 74-68 with a double-double of 16 points and 11 assists coming from Milos Teodosic.
Crvena Zvezda – who is now 16th alone at 11-17 – won’t come back to Stark Arena in Round 28, heading to AS Monaco on March 7 at 19:00 CET. Bayern Munich will also play on the road in the next EuroLeague duty, traveling to Istanbul to face Anadolu Efes on the same day but thirty minutes earlier.
PHOTO CREDIT: Turkish Airlines EuroLeague
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