Besiktas didn't score easily on its home floor but stayed perfect in its EuroCup return thanks to intangibles.
Hustle and smarts let Besiktas stay unbeaten



On a night when it's normally dependable shooting was off, it took something extra for unbeaten Besiktas Emlakjet Istanbul to shake off a persistent challenge from winless Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana on its own floor.
The magic ingredient in the end, as Besiktas prevailed 73-66, was extra possessions due to hustle and smarts.
Besiktas came into the game ranking among the BKT EuroCup's top eight teams in both three-point (39.0%) and free throw (72.5%) accuracy. Both dropped markedly, however, as the hosts hit just 5 of 20 triples (25.0%) and 12 of 18 free throws (66.7%) against Cedevita. In fact, if you add up the points from the arc and the foul line, the two teams were tied on the night at 30 each.
The difference came in two-pointers, where their accuracy wasn't too different: Besiktas made 44.2% and Cedevita made 41.9% on twos. But because of solid edges in two other stats, Besiktas shot a lot more, making 23 of 52 two-point tries to Cedevita's 18 of 43.
The most glaring stat was an offensive rebounding discrepancy of 17 to 10 in favor of the hosts. Leyton Hammonds, Berkan Durmaz and Matt Mitchell led that charge with 3 each. But the Besiktas backcourt did its part, too, by harassing Cedevita into 13 turnovers while committing just 8 themselves. The two stats added up to 12 more chances that Besiktas had to run its offense than Cedevita did, which proved enough for the final seven-point difference.
The result was that in its return to the EuroCup after seven seasons away, Besiktas has 3-0 start in regular season Group A, where is shared first place with Paris Basket and London Lions.