By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Baskonia bounced back from the loss by Panathinaikos in the previous EuroLeague round by torching Galatasaray 103 – 80 on the road and improving their record to 17 – 12.
If the Basques finish the regular season with another victory they can seriously hope of finishing fourth (with a certain combinations of other results) and thus gaining a home-court advantage in the quarterfinals. It was this kind of strong motivation that gave them the push to absolutely blow away their opponents.
Galatasaray was basically indifferent in this match but still, its defensive attitude was pretty much inexcusable. With Ilimane Diop setting a new overall career-high 18 points and Kim Tillie adding 20 the Basques did practically whatever they wanted on the floor, scoring a season-best 60 points (!) at halftime against the hosts’ 44. The score was 33 – 53 at some time.
It’s safe to say that the players of the Turkish team were a bit disoriented also after an incident with head coach Ergin Ataman who briefly left for the locker rooms early in the match after a group of fans began chanting against him. Yet his return didn’t change much.
Alex Tyus (14 points, 9 rebounds), Jon Diebler (14 points) and Sinan Guler (12 points, 9 assists) provided on offense but they still had major problems on the other end. They got as close as 11 points, 61 – 72 but Baskonia retained control making it a 21-point game, 68 – 89 in the fourth to set the pace for a more than easy victory.