By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Darussafaka Tefken Istanbul prevailed over visiting FC Bayern Munich with a 92-87 victory in Round 29 of Turkish Airlines EuroLeague.
This victory doesn’t mean much for already-eliminated Darussafaka except for a warm goodbye in its last homecourt EuroLeague game of the season, though it puts an end to Bayern’s playoffs’ dreams.
“To build our self-confidence and motivation this is very important for us. More than the win I’m very pleased with the help of the players who came off the bench, especially Kartal [Ozmizrak], Dogus [Ozdemiroglu] and Berk [Demir]. They helped us a lot today. This team is their team, and if they keep up with this responsibility I don’t think we’ll have a problem. It was important to win because our shaky confidence turns into strong self-confidence. It’s a little bit like chess – our opponent knew we are strong inside with [Michael] Eric and [Jeremy] Evans, so they had the strategy to push us outside, but we had open shots outside and that helped us have a better percentage”, commented coach Selcuk Ernak after the game.
Bayern initially got in charge with a partial 27-14 score in the first period, though the hosts soon turned things around and evened the game in the second half.
Toney Douglas paced the Turkish team with 26 points, five assists, and six rebounds.
On the other side, Nihad Djedovic tried to save the season for Bayern with his 20-point performance.