By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Once more Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz proved their character. However, the same applied to Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet in the close 75-73 road win in Vitoria.
Isaiah Canaan with 15 points and the last two made shots of the game made things happen, Joel Bolomboy was also great with 16 points, and John Brown made his debut with Zvezda with four points and six rebounds.
“Honestly we did it to ourselves, but we are really happy about the win, we will take it”, said Bolomboy referring to the fact that Zvezda led by 17 points and almost committed suicide in the end.
Filip Petrusev and Milos Teodosic played limited minutes due to injury woes, still, Zvezda has a solid 11-8 record, staying on the playoffs course.
Baskonia dropped to 8-11 on a tie with ASVEL in the 14th spot of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague standings, getting 18 points from Chima Moneke who missed in the end the chance to send the game to overtime.
A thriller until the end
After a hard-fought first quarter which ended tied at 16, Crvena Zvezda took over the game and closed the first half leading by 14 (42-28) by keeping the hosts to just 12 points. The guests didn’t stop and led even by 17 (57-40) after 26 minutes of action.
As expected, Baskonia reacted and made it an eight-point game (60-52) at the end of the third period thanks to an admirable 12-3 run. Still, Zvezda extended the lead back to double digits (63-52) with a three by Rokas Giedratis in the opening of the fourth.
Baskonia didn’t back down fighting by tooth and claw and making it a one-point game (69-68) with less than four minutes left after a big three by Markus Howard. A 9-2 run was completed with two more free throws by Howard that finally gave the 72-71 lead to the home side.
Donta Hall made one more (73-71) and with 1.25 left, he also blocked Nikola Kalinic. Zvezda kept possession, but Yago Dos Santos missed.
It was Howard’s time to miss and Isaiah Canaan tied the score at 73 with 41 seconds left. Howard missed again and Canaan made it (75-73), leaving just 3.6 seconds for Baskonia. Chima Moneke missed and the game was over.
Photo credit: EuroLeague