By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
The amazing trio of Maledon, De Colo, and Lauvergne made things spectacularly happen for LDLC ASVEL.
The French club beat ambitious Anadolu Efes 97-82, getting to a 4-8 record and pushing the former back-to-back champions to 6-6 and a tie with Real Madrid, Milan, and Crvena Zvezda between the 9th and the 12th spot of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague standings.
Joffrey Lauvergne with 18 points and the duo of Nando De Colo and Theo Maledon with 17 points each, creating an offensive force that couldn’t be contained.
On the other side, Rodrigue Beaubois scored 20 points for Efes and Shane Larkin is still missing due to injury.
Efes coach Tomislav Mijatovic said without hesitation: “We finished the first half leading by eight points and then lost the game by 15 points. This is unacceptable. Our players need to understand that this is unacceptable while they are wearing this jersey. We can’t let something like this happen again.”
ASVEL dominated the second half
Efes had the upper hand in the first half, leading 55-47 as the hosts trailed for most of the first 20 minutes of action.
However, the tables were turned in the third period with a partial score of 23-12 for ASVEL which entered the final period up by three (70-67).
That was just the start of the French dominance in the game.
ASVEL opened up the last period with a 20-4 run in five minutes, making the score 90-71, shocking Efes and finishing the game early.
As coach Pierric Poupet said: “Our players showed today that they can be a great defensive team. We need to continue to play with this level of toughness in the EuroLeague”.
Photo credit: EuroLeague