By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
EuroLeague and Olympiacos legend Vassilis Spanoulis couldn’t have wished for a better coaching debut in the Basketball Champions League with Peristeri, as the Greek side begins the 2022-23 BCL season with a convincing 86-70 win over last year’s Winner League runner-up Bnei Herzliya.
Miro Bilan was the MVP of the game. The former Dinamo Sassari center ended the game with 17 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, and 29 of efficiency. Sylvain Francisco, who signed with the Greek team to replace Brandon Brown, put up 16 points and 6 assists, continuing to be a force in the Basketball Champions League landscape after his amazing 2021-22 season with BAXI Manresa.
“We made good things, we slowed down a little bit in the fourth quarter and we need to improve this. It’s a new team with ten new players and new staff. It’s not easy so early in the season to score almost 90 points, we played good basketball”, coach Vassilis Spanoulis said after the game.
Maurice Kemp produced a personal BCL career-high with the 24 points-losing effort, ending with a double-double after grabbing 11 rebounds. Despite this giant performance, he wasn’t enough to help his team close the gap with the home side.
The hosts, which are taking part in their third BCL season, after playing in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 editions, dominated until the fourth quarter, when Bnei Herzliya, which became the fifth team from Israel to ever compete in the BCL, fought back without managing to really come back into the game.
With this victory, Kill Bill’s side goes up first in Group H, waiting for the anticipated encounter between reigning champions Lenovo Tenerife and Rytas Vilnius (05/10, 20:30 CET).
PHOTO CREDIT: Basketball Champions League