By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Zalgiris crashed Galatasaray at home with 87-75 and improved to 2-5, forcing its opponents to their 6th loss in 7 games.
The Lithuanian used its homecourt support early in the game, though Galatasaray was efficient in defense during the first period, keeping the hosts rather low at scoring. The first quarter ended with an even score, 20 – 20. In the second period, Zalgiris started pulling away with Leo Westermann and Brock Motum initiating the tempo. At halftime, the hosts were up 49 – 37.
Halfway through the third period, Augusto Lima gave Sarunas Jasikevicius’ team an 18-point lead with 61 – 43. Soon, the deficit reached the 20-point mark, despite a short 4-0 run by Galatasaray. After 30 minutes, the hosts led 69 – 51, a not so surprising difference, bearing in mind that the Lithuanians had almost double the number of rebounds of the Turkish team, plus 17 assists until then.
Early in the final period, Galatasaray took the ball to the perimeter, with Emir Preldzic and Jon Diebler drilling three pointers. The former was the one to drop the deficit to 8 points for the Turkish team, 77 – 69, with less than 2 minutes remaining.
Motum led the winners with 24 points and 6 rebounds, while Westermann had 16 and 7 rebounds. Sinan Guler was the first scorer for Galatasaray with 15 points.