The former champion produced a vintage performance to keep alive its postseason hopes
Dominant Efes blows away Partizan, 65-97

Anadolu Efes Istanbul boosted its hopes of making the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague postseason with a crushing 65-97 road win over Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade. Luca Banchi's men improved to 16-14, while Zeljko Obradovic's squad dropped to 15-15 after a third successive defeat.
Darius Thompson paced Efes on 19 points and Elijah Bryant added 18 for the visitors, who shot an impressive 25 of 33 (75.8 percent) from inside and 11 of 24 from downtown. Former Partizan player PJ Dozier chipped in with 13 points, Shane Larkin added 11 and Dan Oturu netted 10 for the visiting team.
Tyrique Jones, Frank Ntilikina and Isaac Bonga scored 11 points each for a disjointed Partizan, which has seriously derailed its postseason hopes after its heaviest home defeat in EuroLeague history, surpassing its 31-point loss to CSKA Moscow (55-86) in 2007.
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Ironically, droves of CSKA fans joined their Partizan comrades ahead of Saturday’s football friendly between the two clubs which nurture brethren relations, but they had little to cheer about throughout a lop-sided contest with Efes taking it by the scruff of the neck early on.
Thompson sank the opening 8 points for Efes as the Turkish outfit raced into a 2-8 lead before Partizan hit back to level 16-16 thanks to 9 points from Tyrique Jones, but that was as good as it got for the home team.
Efes found another gear in the second quarter after taking the first 18-24 and simply shot the lights out as the backcourt trio of Thompson, Bryant and Larkin toyed with their rivals, silencing a raucous 20,000 crowd inside Belgrade Arena.
The visitors were 33-54 up at halftime as Dozier also caught fire and then pressed on the gas even harder in the third quarter, as Efes carved out a 37-69 advantage with the home team looking lost at sea.
Sensing that an unspeakable debacle was on the cards, Partizan fans got behind their team in full force in the fourth quarter, making a valiant effort to help the Serbian side salvage some pride but to little effect.
Efes kept going at full throttle and wrapped up a memorable win, its third in a row and the fifth in the last six games, staying firmly on course to reach the business end of the competition after the Istanbul giant’s stretched its fine run of form under Coach Banchi.