Anadolu Efes Istanbul shrugged off being short-handed and continued its strong run of results by knocking off Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade 64-75 on the road.
Short-handed Efes shuts down Zvezda
Spielbericht
1 Lesezeit
Anadolu Efes Istanbul shrugged off being short-handed and continued its strong run of results by knocking off Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade 64-75 on the road. Shane Larkin had another strong performance with 18 points and 5 assists and Adrien Moerman scored 17 points in helping Efes pick up its fifth win in the last six games for a 6-4 record. Krunoslav Simon chipped in 11 points and 4 assists for the visitors, who were without Rodrigue Beaubois, Tibor Pleiss, Vasilije Micic and Bryant Dunston. Zvezda saw its record fall to 4-7 despite Corey Walden scoring 14 points. The EuroLeague’s leading scorer Jordan Loyd was held to just 10 points.
Regular Season
Round 11 of 34
Group Regular Season
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Walden drained a three-pointer on the opening possession for the hosts and Ognjen Kuzmic’s three-point play made it 8-0. Chris Singleton finally got Efes on the scoreboard after nearly 4 minutes with a three-pointer. Larkin added an and-one and Dogus Balbay’s triple trimmed it to 10-9. While Walden had two more baskets, Simon’s layup gave Efes its first lead, 12-13, and Moerman’s triple added to it. The score was 14-16 after 10 minutes. Taylor Rochestie’s triple to open the second quarter put Zvezda back ahead only to see Bugrahan Tuncer and Larkin knock down three-pointers to surge ahead 17-23. Tuncer added 2 more triples and Larkin and Moermann were both on target from deep as well as the advantage swelled to 21-35. Zvezda was able to keep the Efes offense silent for more than 3 minutes and a Walden three-point play and 3 foul shots from Ognjen Dobric closed it to 29-35. Five straight points from Zvezda had the gap down to 34-37 and the score was 36-40 at the break.
Moerman added another triple early in the second half as the cushion went to 37-45. Loyd finally scored his first basket of the game, but Larkin responded with 5 points at the other end and Singleton and James Anderson hit from the outside to reestablish a double-digit lead, 45-58. Moerman knocked down another triple among his 5 points in a 0-9 run to extend the advantage to 48-67, which became 50-67 after 30 minutes. Efes did not slow down in the fourth quarter with Simon and Balbay hitting three-pointers as the lead extended to 54-75 with 6 minutes to play. Zvezda managed to keep the visitors scoreless for the final 6 minutes and went on a 10-0 run with Dejan Davidovac hitting a three-pointer and Loyd converting a three-point play, but the hole had been way too deep.
Top-Player
More scoring problems for Loyd
Jordan Loyd came into the game leading the EuroLeague in scoring at 19.2 points a game, but the Zvedza leader had another poor shooting night. After missing all eight of his field-goal attempts in Round 10 against FC Barcelona and scoring just 2 points, Loyd could not connect on his first nine shots against Efes. In the end, Loyd made 3 of 14 shots and 4 of 6 free throws for 10 points to go with 5 rebounds and 4 assists.
Pivotal performer
Adrien Moerman did a great job off the bench for the winners, tallying 17 points while hitting 6 of 9 shots including 5 of 6 threes and also picking up 9 rebounds, 2 assists and 3 steals.
Telling numbers
Efes shot the lights out from the outside, hitting 15 of 28 on three-pointers (53.6%), while Zvezda connected on just 5 of 20 (25%) from deep. Efes also only committed only 8 turnovers in the game.