By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
The Turkish showdown that began the second leg of the EuroLeague regular season went to the hands of Anadolu Efes that defeated Galatasaray 84 – 73 at home.
This victory brings Efes back in the playoffs zone with a 8 – 8 record and “sinks” the Cimbom lower in the standings. Galatasaray is now 4 – 12 and sees its post-season hopes getting quite reduced.
Bryant Dunston led Efes‘ scorers with 17 points while also grabbing 6 rebounds and blocking the ball twice. Derrick Brown dropped 13 and Brandon Paul 11, all in the first quarter. However Jayson Granger was the one with the finishing touch for coach Perasovic‘s team…
The Uruguayan guard dropped a key pair of three-pointers in the last minutes of the match first making it 79 – 67 with four minutes left and then sealing his team’s win with the basket for the 82 – 73.
Galatasaray, who had managed to stay in game down the stretch with some difficult long range shooting courtesy of Sinan Guler (20 points) and Vladimir Micov (17 points, 7 rebounds) couldn’t overcome such a deficit in almost 90 seconds.
Coach Ataman’s squad lacked solid scoring production rates since apart from Micov and Guler, only Alex Tyus also delivered with a double-double of 16 points and 10 rebounds. What is more, they allowed their hosts to renew 16 possessions via offensive rebounding. Quite a lot.
Although trailing in the vast majority of the match (42 – 36 at halftime), they had managed to stay competitive until late in the third quarter However that was when Efes unleashed its final attack, first taking a double-digit lead 71 – 61 and then simply not allowing their opponents to become threatening.