Elijah Bryant came up big for the visitors
Efes gets crucial road win, hands Baskonia first home loss
Anadolu Efes Istanbul earned a crucial victory in the early fight for the play-in spots as it knocked off Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz 84-89 on the road to hand the Spanish side its first home defeat. Efes entered the game in 10th place and wasted a 15-point lead, but improved to 5-4 including a 4-1 road record.
Elijah Bryant scored 20 points to go with 8 rebounds and 6 assists for the winners, who also saw Darius Thompson pour in 18 points and Rodrigue Beaubois drain 5 three-pointers for 16 points.
Baskonia, which was 11th coming into the contest, fell to 4-5 including 4-1 at Buesa Arena. Chima Moneke paced the hosts with 22 points and Khalifa Diop had 13 points and 9 rebounds. Markus Howard missed all four of his three-point attempts in going scoreless - just the second time in 80 games that he failed to score a point after Round 26 in 2022-23 against Valencia in just 7:26 minutes.
Game Videos
Beaubois started the game hot with a three-pointer for a 0-5 lead. Ousmane Ndiaye knocked down 2 triples at the other end and Trent Forrest had 4 points as Baskonia led 16-12. Beaubois drained his third and fourth three-pointers of the quarter in a 0-10 Efes run to pull ahead 16-22. Baskonia finished the quarter strong and was down 21-24.
Baskonia was still close at 24-29 when Efes’s defense held tough and Bryant and Stanley Johnson knocked down triples in a 5-15 run for a 29-44 cushion. Baskonia went into the locker room on a high note with a 10-2 close of the first half thanks to 5 points from Nikos Rogkavopoulos to trail 39-46.
Baskonia retained the momentum from the end of the first half and held Efes scoreless for more than 5 minutes. Moneke converted a three-point play and Kamar Baldwin drained a triple in a 12-0 start to the third quarter for a 51-46 lead. Efes countered with three and-ones of its own and Thompson knocked down back-to-back threes as the visitors went up 61-63. The score was 63-65 after 30 minutes.
Efes drained 3 three-pointers and was ahead 70-74 in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter. The visitors went cold again and Baskonia answered with the next 7 points to lead 77-74. Efes punched back with 4 straight points to move back ahead and start a string of five lead changes with Thompson hitting a triple with 80 seconds left to make it 82-83. Bryant followed with a layup off the glass and Efes went up 82-85 with 28 seconds remaining. After Moneke and Bryant swapped free throws, Moneke was called for an offensive foul with 8 seconds left to give Efes the win.