By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
Crvena Zvezda played one great defensive game against Fenerbahce Beko in Belgrade to take its first win of the 2019-2020 EuroLeague by beating the Turkish powerhouse 68 – 56.
With the score 53 – 51 in the mid of the fourth quarter, Red Star had a decisive 8-0 run to set the foundations for its victory. Melih Mahmutoglou drained the 3-pointer to make it 61 – 54 with 90 seconds remaining, but Stratos Perperoglou made the bucket to keep his team at a distance.
After a missed 3-point attempt by Melih, James Gist more or less sealed his team’s triumph with a tip-in for the 65 – 54. Time was on Zvezda’s side since Fener couldn’t hope to turn this around with less than one minute left and suffered its second loss in two games this season.
In the second EuroLeague game of his career, Lorenzo Brown was the top contributor of Zvezda with game-highs 13 points, six assists, and 17 PIR. “It means a lot. First EuroLeague win. We want to keep this intensity the whole year. The fans were amazing. I can’t explain it really,” Brown said in his post-game comments.
Gist added 11 points and eight rebounds while Perperoglou scored 11 as well. For Fenerbahce, Nando De Colo (19 points) and Dixon (13 points) were the only players in double figures.
Still, the night in Belgrade belonged to Zvezda. As coach Milan Tomic added: “What decided this game? Our defense. When you play against Fenerbahce and they score 56 points in the whole game, this is for sure a big step to winning the game. I think that was the point of today’s game. But this is only one win and we have to continue.”
Photo credit: EuroLeague