By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
It was as close as it got and ultimately decided on the last shot. Vladimir Lucic couldn’t make it and Valencia prevailed over Bayern Munich in a close game.
However, when all was said and done, the point is that the 70-68 win gave Valencia a 14-16 record and a tie for the 10th spot with Partizan, while Bayern dropped to 13-17 and a tie between the 12th and 15th spot with Anadolu Efes and Milan.
“My heart dropped, I felt we deserved this win”, said Chris Jones describing his feeling when the last shot of Lucic was off his hands and not out of the rim yet.
The trio of Jones (19 p.), Semi Ojeleye (14 p.), and Damien Inglish (15 p.) made things happen, contributing on both ends of the floor, as the team was missing Brandon Davis due to injury.
Bayern got 16 points from Devin Booker, but he left the game injured five minutes before the end of it.
“Our goal is to keep pushing and fight for a spot in the playoffs and tonight we gave ourselves a chance”, added Jones as his team got also the tiebreaker over Bayern.
A dogfight in the end
Valencia had things under control from the first moment, jumping to a 23-8 lead and having a 28-15 advantage after the first 10 minutes of action.
The halftime score was 45-37 with the hosts already having Jones, Ojeleye, and Inglish scoring 10 points each.
“We were late in the game, we gave them too much of an advantage in the beginning”, admitted Bayern coach Pablo Laso, “we couldn’t make shots and the last one was an example, in total, it was a tough game”.
However, the momentum changed in the third period with Bayern trailing by one (57-56) at the end of it with Sylvain Fransisco scoring his 12th point of the night.
Thanks to the first basket of the game from Nick Weiler-Babb, the Germans finally got the 58-57 lead. The game turned into a dogfight and with Justin Anderson scoring five straight points, Valencia got back a 63-60 advantage.
Ojeleye added two more free throws (65-60) and Booker left the game injured The lead of Valencia extended to seven (67-60) but Bayern didn’t give up.
They managed to cut the lead to 67-64 despite Carsen Edwards getting called for an unsportsmanlike foul.
With 26.5 seconds left, Lucic made it a one-point game (69-68) by making one of two free throws. Stefan Jovic made one of two (70-68) and Lucic had the last shot, but couldn’t make the three to win it all.
“We suffered until the end, defensively both wins are incredible and we are happy for this result”, said Valencia coach Alex Mumbru.
Photo credit: EuroLeague