By Aris Barkas/ info@eurohoops.net
The first leg of the 2019-2020 EuroLeague regular season was completed Friday (3/1) and two teams stand first among the rest: Real Madrid and Anadolu Efes, both at 14-3.
Real Madrid prides on having the longest winning streak in the competition after capturing its 12th win of the season in France against ASVEL. In the meantime, Efes‘ offense continues to work wonders and the latest victory over Khimki Moscow is a fine example of that.
Of course, the biggest win of Round 17 belongs to Panathinaikos, hence the choice of two players of the “Greens” for this week’s “Best Five”.
MVP
Nick Calathes (Panathinaikos)
Calathes delivered a magnificent all-around performance of 22 points, 17 assists and six rebounds to lead Panathinaikos to the away win against CSKA. Oh, and he was the one to drain the 3-pointer that forced the overtime with just seconds left in regulation.
Best Five
- Nick Calathes (Panathinaikos): An amazing performance.
- Lukas Lekavicius (Zalgiris Kaunas): After snapping a nine-game skid last week with a victory over Bayern Munich, Zalgiris Kaunas needed to just keep winning to possibly become relevant again in EuroLeague. Enter Lukas Lekavicius and his 23 points (21 of them in the second half) on more than solid shooting (3/5 2-pointers, 4/6 3-pointers) against Maccabi Tel Aviv.
- Nando De Colo (Fenerbahce): Fenerbahce needed to win in Piraeus against Olympiacos… badly. Nando De Colo brought the heat to the “Reds” with 32 points in just 26:31 minutes and excellent percentages (6/9 2-pointers, 5/8 3-pointers).
- Trey Thompkins (Real Madrid): Real Madrid traveled to France for the game against ASVEL Villeurbanne minus a lot of key players. They needed people to step up and Trey Thompkins answered the call by scoring a season-high 20 points and grabbing seven rebounds.
- Dinos Mitoglou (Panathinaikos): That’s pretty much the definition of a breakout performance: Mitoglou notched career-highs 25 points, 16 rebounds (eight of them on offense) and 42 PIR in possibly the biggest win of the season for his team while making people wonder “who is that guy?”.
Coach of the week: Pablo Laso (Real Madrid): Anthony Randolph, Sergio Llull, Gabriel Deck, Jaycee Carroll. These are just some of the players that Pablo Laso didn’t have available in the game against ASVEL Villeurbanne. Yet despite the absences, he presented a squad that dominated the game on both ends and delivered a balanced, highly effective performance that led to the win. All that in an arena where such teams as CSKA Moscow, Panathinaikos, Khimki Moscow, and Olimpia Milano lost this season.
The record: Vassilis Spanoulis becomes EuroLeague’s all-time scoring king
With few minutes remaining in the game between Fenerbahce Beko and Olympiacos Piraeus, Vassilis Spanoulis hit the basket that brought him to the top of EuroLeague’s all-time scoring leaders list. The three-time champion and Final Four MVP plus 2012-2013 season MVP reached another milestone in a career that is packed with team and individual achievements.