By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Nikola Mirotic scored 23 points, Niccolo Manion had 20, and veteran Fabien Causeur also 20 on 6/6 threes as Milan simply couldn’t be denied.
The team of coach Ettore Messina prevailed 101-86 over Crvena Zvezda getting to a 7-6 record, while the Serbs dropped to 6-7.
Zach LeDay added 14 points and seven rebounds for the winning side.
“I am happy because we won a very important game at home, and despite our ups and downs, we made it until the end’, said Mirotic.
“We still miss players like Nebo, Bolmaro, Tonut and we need everyone because the season is long”, added coach Ettore Messina.
Yago Dos Santos with 17 points and Isaiah Canaan with 14 were the top scorers of Zvezda, but couldn’t turn the tide of a mostly one-sided game.
A scoring show by Milan
Milan had an impressive start in the game with a 16-5 run and led even by 12 (21-9), closing the first half up by eight (23-15).
Canaan with two threes closed the gap for Zvezda, however, Milano reacted and made the score 31-18 after two minutes in the second quarter.
Zvezda finally started playing defense and trimmed the lead to four (40-36) with Dejan Davidovac scoring all the points on an 8-2 run.
Milan’s answer was two threes by Zach LeDay and Mannion (46-36) and the hosts closed the first half up by 11 (53-42).
After just three minutes in the second half, however, things were different. Milan had a 15-5 run with Mirotic, Mannion, Causeur, and LeDay scoring, the lead jumped to 21 points (68-47).
The game changed again, with Zvezda closing the gap to 10 points (73-63), but Milan wasn’t rattled.
At the end of the third period, the Italians were up by 14 (79-65) with Causeur scoring his fifth three in five attempts, and never looked back, stretching their lead again to 19 points (95-76).
Photo credit: EuroLeague