By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
For a second EuroLeague season in a row, Crvena Zvezda takes down Real Madrid in Belgrade. This time, the ABA and Serbian champs beat the “Blancos” 82 – 70 claiming their sixth victory in the competition, while forcing their opponents to their fifth defeat in 14 games.
Most players of Red Star contributed in one way or another, spanning their output at both ends of court but the one who shined the most was Marko Simonovic. The Serbian “sniper” dropped 20 points, slicing the opposing defense with his action. Marko Guduric added 12, Stefan Jovic 11 plus 6 assists and Ognjen Kuzmic 11 and 8 rebounds.
Jeff Taylor had a career-night in Euroleague with a 25 points competition high, shooting 7/10 from downtown but it was not enough. Sergio Llull added 12 but was painfully off target from long range (0/6). This was generally an issue for the Madridistas that finished the match with 8/27 from beyond the arc.
With Simonovic leading the way, the hosts managed to get an 11 points lead (36-25) at the 15th minute thanks to a 9-0 run and Real Madrid trailed by 8 points (43-35) at half time.
Sergio Llull and Jaycee Carroll had a total of 0/8 threes during the first 20 minutes and Jeffery Taylor with 12 first half points was keeping the “Whites” alive. Still it was obvious that Real Madrid was ready for a come back and they did, cutting Zvezda’s lead to 3 (45-42) after starting the second half with a 7-2 partial score.
But then more and more players entered the offensive equation for the hosts which went up by 12, 61 – 49 near the end of the third quarter. This was just the beginning, though, for the hosts who turned up their engines, ready to finish the job.
Real Madrid struggled connecting to the basket facing the non-stop physical defense of Crvena Zvezda that allowed only 4 points in the first 5 minutes of the final period. Meanwhile, Red Star led by 15, 70 – 55, an advantage that safely guided them to victory.