By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
The second round of Euroleague’s regular season started with three thrilling encounters, one upset at Munich, a blow out road triumph at Belgrade and an relatively easy win of CSKA at Moscow.
Laboral Kutxa played without its leader Andres Nocioni, but found the way to beat Maccabi Tel Aviv on the road. After a close game the guests got the 70-65 win proving that despite their injury woes they are still a very solid team. Maccabi has the excuse of playing without Yogev Ohayon who proved to be injured, but they had to protect better their home court.
At Istanbul, battered by injuries Galatasaray by tooth and claw got the 54-52 win over Siena. It was an ugly game, very important for both teams and the Italians had the chance to win it, but Daniel Hackett missed his last three pointer. Once more Pops Mensah Bonsu was a beast with 16 points and 16 rebounds, eight of them offensive.
Also Panathinaikos after a mediocre first half in which Lietuvos Rytas got a double digits lead, exploded in the third quarter (25-8 partial score) and got the 80-72 win in its first game of the season at OAKA. The game was close until the last minute (75-72 with 22 seconds left), but the hosts made all the right plays in the end, led by a great James Gist (23 p.) who played also for his injured teammate Stephan Lasme.
At Munich, Zielona Gora got an important win in the Top16 race over Bayern Munich (78-71). The Polish champions couldn’t cover the point difference from their 93-74 home defeat by the Germans, however they can still hope.
At Belgrade, after a more or less balanced first half Barcelona transformed a modest six points lead against Partizan (38-32) to a twenty points gap during the third quarter (64-44) and the game practically ended with 82-64 being the final score. In the first game of the day at Moscow, CSKA got even a twenty points lead over Nanterre which gave a fight, made a come back (68-60), but in the end the Russians got the 72-60 win.