The Romanian side had five players score in double figures
Cluj rolled past Hamburg with star Zavier Simpson going scoreless
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U-BT Cluj-Napoca showed just how good it can play as it rolled past Veolia Towers Hamburg 104-83 with a real team performance offensively, which also saw star guard Zavier Simpson finish the game scoreless.
Simpson missed his only 6 shots in the game but still dished out 7 assists and added 3 rebounds and 2 steals as Cluj shared the ball very well. All told, the Romanian powerhouse dished out 28 assists while shooting 12 of 22 on three-pointers for a blistering 54.5%. That was much higher than Cluj’s three-point shooting coming into the game – 32.8% for 11th in the league.
“Tonight, we played great team basketball,” said Cluj coach Mihai Silvasan, whose team had five players score in double figures.
Adam Mokoka had 19 points, Gediminas Orelik tallied 18 points, De’Shawn Stephens 16, DJ Seeley 15 and Mareks Mejeris added 14 points. Simpson, for his part, came into the game ranked third in average PIR at 21.0 and scoring average at 18.2 points per game.
The defensive performant was definitely more to Silvasan’s liking after the team had given up more than 100 points in two of its last three games. Coming into the game, Cluj had been ranked 18th in points allowed at 89.9 per game.
“We were a little afraid of this game. Hamburg is not that bad of a team as the score shows. They had some good results this season, but we passed this game,” said Silvasan, whose team lost its last domestic league game after Christmas.
“For me, this game is already history. I am already focusing on the next game against Hapoel Jerusalem. It’s a home game and if we want to be in a playoffs spot we need to fight and try to win it.”
There are a lot of positives for Silvasan and his team to take from this game moving forward.