By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Everyone who was expecting a fight in Kaunas was disappointed. Anadolu Efes got the easy 79-58 win over Zalgiris and remains on course for the home court advantage in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague playoffs.
The Turks are turning heads this season and Adrien Moerman was the star of the show this time. The French power forward scored 23 points in the first three quarters, staying on the court for 28 minutes. He was dominating and as result, Efes entered the last quarter leading by 18 points (63-45).
Shane Larkin made it a 20-point game with the first made shot of the last period (65-45) and the game was practically over. Efes led even by 26 (79-53).
“The main thing was that we didn’t spend our energy to play aggressively on offense, to play a running game as we do at home, like the mistake in our last games in Moscow and Barcelona“, said Efes coach Ergin Ataman. “We spent our energy on defense, in rebounds and on offense we controlled the game. We never went to attack early in fast break or transition offense. we tried to put the game on five-on-five offense. We took the rhythm of the game, lowered the score. That’s what we like. My players shared the ball on offense and did a good job on defense.”
Zalgiris was trailing by two points (16-14) at the end of the first period, but Efes was already up by 11 at halftime (40-29). The new addition of the home team, Deon Thompson, was not used in the game and despite playing on their court, shots were not falling for the Lithuanians. It was part an off night and also credit has to be given to Efes’ defense.
Still, the fact remains that no Zalgiris player scored more than nine points, while Leo Westermann and Antanas Kavaliauskas missed one more game.
On the other side, Bryant Dunston added 13 points, Rodrigue Beaubois had 12, while the duo of Shane Larkin and Krunoslav Simon added nine points each.
Photo credit: EuroLeague