By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Lorenzo Brown had an all-around performance of 15 points, seven assists and six rebounds for a team-high 26 PIR, as Crvena Zvezda crushed Bayern Munich 93-63 in the Euroleague Round 17 opener and the first game of 2020.
This win improved Red Star to 8 – 9 while Bayern dropped to 6 – 11. Three Red Star players scored in double figures, apart from Brown. Newcomer Kevin Punter had a game-high-tying 15 points in 16:49 in his debut with the team while Dejan Davidovac dropped 13 points, same as Vladimir Stimac who also had six boards. Billy Baron added 10 points and five assists.
As Brown said: “It feels great. The new guys came in and fitted in right from the top. We needed that. Kev (Kevin Punter) was aggressive, KJ (Marko Jagodic Kuridza) was aggressive and my guy S (Vladimir Stimac) was aggressive, too. We needed that from those guys. We feel like our bench came off and gave us great energy and led us to a great victory tonight.”
Greg Monroe had game-highs 20 points and 28 PIR for the losing squad but was the only player of his team to produce substantially. Vladimir Lucic was the only other Bayern player in double-digit numbers (11 points) apart from Monroe.
The Bavarian squad fell behind 16 – 9 after entering the match 0 – 6 and trailed by 21, 53 – 31, at halftime.
The hosts proceeded to absolutely dominate. In the mid of the fourth period, they even led 89 – 53, turning the game into a triumph.
“Defensively this was a bad Bayern performance”
Dejan Radonjic, the former coach of Zvezda who now sits on the bench of Bayern and was honored by his former team before the game, admitted that Bayern was not ready for this kind of game: “Defensively, this was a bad Bayern performance, we played soft and they used everything they could during the game. Once again, congratulations to Zvezda. Thanks to Zvezda and its fans for the great welcome, every step of the way. It was quite emotional, without a doubt, which cannot be said for what happened after that. In the last seven rounds, Zvezda had 5 wins and I think this is great. The corrections they made immediately paid off with a win against Zenit, and today, they proved that a lot of good things can be expected from Zvezda in the remainder of the season.”