Rarely, if ever, has Anadolu Efes Istanbul had trouble scoring points under Coach Ergin Ataman like it did in the championship game, but 58 points turned out to be enough to beat Real Madrid.
Efes took the crown despite scoring-low under Ataman
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When the final buzzer on the 2021-22 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season sounded, Efes was celebrating its title defense after a 57-58 win over Real. What was unusual about Efes’s victory was that it came in such a low-scoring affair.
For one, Efes under Ataman has not been in this position before because the 58 points marked the fewest Efes has scored in a single game over the last four seasons. It is also tied for the fewest points scored in any game under Coach Ergin Ataman, who began his third stint as the team's head coach in December 2017.
The majority of Efes’s players have been with the team since the start of the 2018-19 season. Ten players who dressed for the season opener that campaign are still on the team and helped Efes win back-to-back titles.
But over that span of four seasons and 146 games, Efes has scored fewer than 60 points just once before this championship game, when it lost 59-77 at home against Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz in December 2020.
Moreover, before the start of the 2022 EuroLeague Playoffs, Ataman's Efes had not won a single game when it scored fewer than 69 points. However, two of the team's biggest wins of the season came that way.
First, in Game 1 of the playoffs, Efes downed AX Armani Exchange Milan on the road 48-64. It then edged Real on Saturday night to lift the crown.
"During the season we were one of the best offensive teams. I don't think there were a lot of games where we scored under 80 points. So, it was a special game today,” center Tibor Pleiss said. “In the end, we were lucky."