By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Real Madrid defeated ASVEL Villeurbanne 87 – 77 on the road to register its 12th consecutive win and tie Fenerbahce Beko’s record for most straight victories under EuroLeague’s new format.
Four Real players stepped up with season-high performances to push their injury-plagued team to win. Trey Thompkins scored 20 points and got seven rebounds Rudy Fernandez dropped 18 points and Jordan Mickey also 18 points while grabbing seven boards. Nicolas Laprovittola had 12 points. The “Blancos” came to this game without such players as leading scorer Anthony Randolph, Sergio Llull, Jaycee Carroll and Gabriel Deck.
For ASVEL, captain Charles Kahudi posted 18 points, Adreian Payne 11, Rihards Lomazs 10 points, same as Livio Jean-Charles who also had seven rebounds. The French side was coached by assistant T.J. Parker (Tony Parker’s brother) since head coach Zvezdan Mitrovic was down with an illness.
“We were right there with them. I really wish we could have finished the first half better than we did. After that timeout when we made it 34-38, they went on a 3-15 run, and that makes a big difference. We made some mistakes, some turnovers and with big teams like that, you get punished right away,” Parker said.
Real led from nearly start to finish and always by double figures after making a 0-10 run in the second quarter to close halftime up 37 – 52. The hosts couldn’t keep up and fell behind by 20, 49 – 69 late in the third period.
ASVEL made a rally down the stretch to possibly come back and Jordan Taylor scored for the 70 -81 with 3:30 left. Yet his team didn’t capitalize on some opportunities to cut the deficit to single digits, as Real always managed to stay a couple of steps ahead.
A fine way to begin 2020
Real Madrid coach Pablo Laso pointed out how efficient his team was despite the tough defense that ASVEL usually implements.
“It’s a good start [to the new year]. I think we had a good performance all around,” Laso said. “We had mistakes but we were able to compete very well on both ends. Defensively we were solid. They opened up the floor with some three-pointers but we stayed solid defensively and didn’t give them offensive rebounds and we moved the ball pretty well. I am happy with the victory and happy with the performance of the team on a difficult day for us with a lot of guys missing. It was very physical. We know how they play here. Very strong, a lot of contact. But we were able to move the ball well and find good positions. And when we didn’t make turnovers we were able to hit our jumpers. So I am happy with the way we played offensively, even knowing it was going to be hard from the beginning.”
Laso also talked about the injury status of his missing players in the post-game presser.
Photo: EuroLeague Basketball