By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
It was not as easy as expected, but when all was said and done, Fenerbahce got their 13th win in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season by beating Buducnost VOLI 89-65 on the road for the 14th round of the regular season.
Jan Vesely played for 22 minutes and had in total 19 points and nine rebounds. He wasn’t used in the last quarter, as his teammates finished the job, while the hosts collapsed and scored just ten points in the last quarter. Joffrey Lauvergne added 17 points for the winners and Kostas Sloukas had 11.
Despite an early 31-20 lead for Fenerbahce at the start of the second quarter, the score at halftime was tied at 40. Buducnost bounced back with Earl Clark scoring 11 points and Edwin Jackson adding seven.
However, after five minutes of action in the second half, the hosts were up by seven (54-47) with Vesely and Bobby Dixon leading the show. The third period ended with the score being 67-55 in favor of Fenerbahce.
“At halftime, we talked about defense“, explained coach Zeljko Obradovic after the end of the game. “We changed our defense, we played much more aggressive, good help and good rotations defensively, smarter offensively without rushing like in the first half and this was the game.”
There was no coming back for Buducnost after this point and Fenerbahce kept things in check until the final buzzer. Clark finished the game with 15 points, Petar Popovic has 12 and Nemanja Gordic 11.
Buducnost finished the game with 61% efficiency in shooting two-pointers, but only 4/13 threes against 15 made threes in 27 attempts by Fenerbahce which also got 11 offensive boards.
Photo credit: EuroLeague