By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Anadolu Efes had a great shooting night as they logged a 99-79 home win over Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv in Round 16 of Turkish Airlines EuroLeague.
Efes had an upper hand from the start as they led by 23-19 after ten minutes and 48-41 at halftime led by Rodrigue Beaubois’ 15 and Krunoslav Simon’s 14 points.
The two kept going after the break as well but Vasilije Micic joined them for the crucial run in the third quarter which put the Turkish squad ahead 80-58 from which Maccabi couldn’t recover in the final ten minutes.
Micic banked 16 points in the third quarter out of his 23 while Beaubois finished with 22 and Simon with 19 for Efes which shot 16-28 from deep. The three players also banked the majority of the team’s threes, 12 combined.
For Maccabi, which is still crippled by injury woes and may have suffered another one as Scottie Wilbekin had to exit the floor midway through the third quarter, Jake Cohen scored 15 in addition to Wilbekin’s 12 and Angelo Caloiaro’s ten points.
Changing strategy on the fly
Efes coach Ergin Ataman wasn’t satisfied the way his squad started the game but they adapted quickly and turn things around:
“In the first half, we didn’t start the game so aggressive the way we prepared. We gave easy easy shots to Wilbekin, who found easy 9 points in the first quarter. Then we changed the strategy, we changed the matchups. We put Dogus on the court to put pressure on him. We started to use Beaubois on offense, because in our pick-and-roll offense, especially against Larkin, they played aggressive with Zoosman, they played a double team and they didn’t let Larkin find his open way to score. We changed strategy and Beaubois was very hot today. He found his shots, he made them, so we continued with this system. We used Krunoslav Simon in the pick-and-roll situations, so we attacked Scottie Wilbekin. He was very good in scoring, but also on defense our strategy was to attack him with his player and we changed the control of the game in the first half.”
“In the second half, we started more aggressive with aggressive defense; we stole the ball. Beaubois was very aggressive. Micic was involved in the game when they started to play switching man on defense and Singleton put great hustle in rebounds and also offense,” he added.
Efes will temporarily take over the first spot with a 13-3 record while Maccabi ranks fourth with an 11-5 record, same as CSKA.