Reyer showed class by not letting Hamburg finish comeback
Reyer 'stayed with it' to fight off Hamburg rally
Umana Reyer Venice exhibited the veteran leadership it possesses by fending off a valiant comeback attempt by Veolia Towers Hamburg to keep its sights set on a top-two finish.
Reyer watched a 25-point cushion get trimmed down to 9 points in the fourth quarter but finished the deal for a 77-90 road victory to improve to 8-6. Reyer’s sixth victory in the last seven games has the team just one victory behind second-placed team Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem at 9-5.
“We’ve been stepping up our defense. We have guys healthy now. Offensively we are moving the ball and we’re starting to play with the team that we signed up to play,” said Kyle Wiltjer, who scored 16 points and grabbed 7 rebounds in the victory. “We’re excited. We have a good rhythm and we hope to continue this success moving into the new year.”
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Wiltjer was not concerned about the team giving up so much of the big advantage.
“We just tried to stay with it. It’s tough to play with the lead. We kind of got complacent for a couple minutes. But we stayed with it, we made it tough for them. We got some steals and did enough to get the victory,” he said.
Reyer did a good job shooting the ball from the outside, hitting 11 of 28 three-point attempts. That 39.3% percent is 7.1% better than the team’s percentage coming into the game - which was ranked 14th in the competition. But Reyer was also facing the second-worst team in defending the long ball as Hamburg’s opponents shot 38.5% on three-pointers.
Reyer coach Neven Spahija was not pleased that Hamburg made things interesting, but he was not surprised.
“At halftime, I said to my team that Hamburg would not give up. They are so competitive. They are physical and they scored 29 points in the third quarter which is not acceptable for us,” the coach said. “But we controlled the game for three quarters and found a way to bring it to the end.”