Valencia Basket continued its rise up the standings with an 86-90 comeback road win at Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul on Friday.
Valencia comeback beats host Fenerbahce 86-90
Game Report
1 Min read
Valencia Basket continued its rise up the standings with an 86-90 comeback road win at Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul on Friday. Valencia's now has a 7-3 record, good for at least fourth place, while Fenerbahce fell to 4-7 with its fourth consecutive defeat. Valencia erased a 43-33 halftime lead with a 0-10 start to the third quarter, and then followed its guards in the fourth quarter to a late victory. Sam Van Rossom scored 8 of his 20 points in the last 90 seconds to lead Valencia in scoring. Klemen Prepelic ad all of is 13 points in the final quarter, while Derrick Williams added 13, as well, and Bojan Dubljevic 11 for the winners. Dyshawn Pierre led Fenerbahce's six double-digit scorers with 18 points. Ali Muhammed followed with 16, Lorenzo Brown with 15, Danilo Barthel with 14, Jarell Eddie with 11 and Jan Vesely with 10. Valencia's defense held Fenerbahce to 7-for-19 two-point shooting after halftime, or 36.8%, to secure the victory.
Regular Season
Round 11 of 34
Group Regular Season
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Valencia's Jaime Pradilla, Van Rossom, Dubljevic and Nikola Kalinic scored at the rim while Fenerbahce's Brown and Muhammed hit from deep for an 8-8 tie. Kalinic landed Valencia's first triple before Barthel's put-back and Brown's free throws put Fenerbahce up 12-11. Eddie and Williams traded triples before Vesely's free throws left Fenerbahce up 17-16 after one quarter. Williams blasted a dunk, Pierre and Fernando San Emeterio hit dueling threes, and Barthel hammered a put-back to make it 24-21. Williams tied it from long range but Muhammed, Pierre and Eddie moved the hosts ahead 33-28. Pierre kept it going with a three-point play to which Muhammed added a triple at 39-30. Van Rossom's spectacular save led to his three-point play, but Vesely scored the half's last 4 points, including a buzzer-beating put-back slam, for a double-digit lead, 43-33.
Kalinic opened the second-half scoring then Dubljevic and Van Rossom drilled triples as Valencia ate up the deficit in chunks. Van Rossom completed the 0-10 comeback run with a layup at 43-43. Vesely ended Fenerbahce's long drought before Brown popped from the arc at 48-45. Vives soon copied him for a new lead change, 48-50. Pierre's and-one inside bucked flipped the scoreboard again to 53-52. Muhammed's transition triple made it 56-52 but Vives got Valencia close until San Emeterio could drill a go-ahead corner shot at 58-59. Barthel answered in kind and Muhammed found Eddie for a buzzer-beating three to restore a 64-59 Fenerbahce lead after 30 minutes. Leo Westermann's back-door layup fell first for Fenerbahce before 5 free throws and Martin Hermannsson's wing triple vaulted Valencia to a new lead, 66-67. Vesely's jumper and Klemen Prepelic's triple changed the lead twice again, as did shots from deep by Muhammed and Prepelic. Pierre's free throws tied it 73-73 with 5 minutes left. Prepelic broke it from deep but soon Barthel did the same to tie 78-78. Dubljevic's inside basket, free throws by Prepelic and a layup by Van Rossom gave Fenerbahce a 79-84 lead with 1:20 left. Van Rossom matched Barthel's free throws early in the final minute. Brown's coast-to-coast layup made it 83-86, but Van Rossom was free throws protected the lead from a late triple by Pierre, sending the victory back to Valencia.
Game Leaders
Back-and-forth battle
The game featured 17 lead changes and seven ties before the last one, which came when Valencia captain Bojan Dubljevic backed down for a layup to make it 78-80 with 2:48 to play. Lorenzo Brown missed 1 of his 2 free throws that came next for Fenerbahce, which didn't get withing 3 points again until Dyshawn Pierre's three-pointer with 2 seconds left made it 86-88, but left no time for heroics.
Pivotal performers
Fenerbahce led 66-59 after the first shot of the final quarter, after which Valencia outscored the hosts 19-31 the rest of the way. The guard combo of Sam Van Rossom and Klemen Prepelic took turns scoring 20 of those points. Prepelic had 13 before the two-minute mark, his last free throws making it 79-82, and Van Rossom supplied the last 8 points to secure the victory.
Key sequence
Fenerbahce seemed to have all the momentum with a 19-9 run to a 43-33 halftime lead punctuated but Jan Vesely's put-back dunk on the buzzer. Valencia needed just the first 4 minutes after halftime to erase the difference on a 10-0 run in which Van Rossom had the last 5 points, including a layup seconds after a spectacular save that left him sitting in the first-row seats. The battle was rejoined and Van Rossom would come back to settle it in the end.
Moving up the charts
Jan Vesely's final points of the night moved him into 18th place all-time in EuroLeague scoring with 2,409 points, one ahead of Ioannis Bourousis and 35 behind 17th placed Nikola Vujcic.