D.J Seeley stood out as a result of an unselfish approach that allowed the swingman to fire on all cylinders
Teamwork facilitated Cluj’s huge win over Turk Telekom
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A player who posts personal records in a game usually overshadows the rest of the team with all eyes on the hero, but D.J. Seeley’s big night did exactly the opposite: it highlighted a selfless approach by his teammates who embodied the “all for one and one for all” proverb.
Seeley poured in a career-high 31 points in U-BT Cluj-Napoca’s 94-81 home win over Turk Telekom Ankara, which left the Romanian champs firmly on course to reach the BKT EuroCup playoffs, behind a team 23 assists and good work from several other players.
Zavier Simpson added 21 points, 11 of them in the fourth quarter with Seeley taking a back seat in the second half after sinking 25 points in the first. Simpson also dished out 10 assists while De’Shawn Stephens and Adam Mokoka chipped in with 10 points each to underline a smooth team effort which put Seeley to the fore.
The result left Cluj on a 9-7 record in Group B with two games remaining in the regular season, both of them road outings against teams that have no chance of reaching the playoffs. Cluj will be up against 7Bet-Lietkabelis Panevezys followed by a visit to Aris Midea Thessaloniki in the final two rounds and head coach Mihai Silvasan warned his men against taking anything for granted.
“Big win for us and I want to start by thanking the supporters who really helped us,” Silvasan told reporters at the postgame press conference. “The job isn’t done yet as we can still fail to qualify, so we need to stay focused. I’m really happy with the way we played tonight, having had 23 assists and we scored 94 points, but it was also the defense that facilitated that.
“We played against a really good team with some really skilled players, but tonight we were the better team and we deserved to win. We move forward and need to keep our feet on the ground.”
Turk Telekom might have expected a somewhat easier outing after a comfortable 99-80 win in the reverse fixture, but the visitors were stung by a torrid pace dictated by Cluj as much as by the fervent home fans who generated a raucous atmosphere in the gym.
Coach Erdem Can had no complaints, having conceded that his team got undone at both ends of the court.
“We gave too many open shots to our opponents and offensively we didn’t share the ball well enough. We have two more games and our target is to win both in order to achieve the best possible finish in the regular season.”
Turk Telekom plays Umana Reyer Venice at home in Round 17 before closing out its regular season campaign with a visit to Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem, with both games coming as dogfights in the quest to reach the business end of the competition.