By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Jan Vesely and Nando De Colo are back to their old selves, Marko Guduric feels right at home and the end result for Fenerbahce was one more win. The Turkish club prevailed (82-75) over Maccabi thanks to a good second half and got a key result in the playoffs break, beating the Israelis for the second time this season.
As Vesely said: “Every day our performance is better and better and I’m very happy that we’re going this way. This period when I was injured, coming back a lot of times not 100% healthy, it would be better not to play, but I tried to help the team as much as I can and now that I have two healthy legs, it’s easy to play and now I found a rhythm and I hope it’s going to stay like this,”
Vesely with 18 points led the charge, De Colo added 16 points, Dyshawn Pierre scored 15 and Guduric had 11. Newcomer Kyle O’Quinn played only 1,5 minutes since he just arrived in Europe.
“It’s very important for the playoff race and winning seven in a row is tough, but we’re trying to have the next-game mentality and that’s really the important thing”, added Pierre.
After a balanced first half in which Fenerbahce had a one-point lead (36-35), the third period started with an 8-2 run (44-37) which was a sign for things to come. Maccabi reacted fast and tied the score at 46, but Maccabi led by seven at the end of the quarter (60-53) and jumped to a 67-56 lead – the biggest of the game – with less than eight minutes left.
Thanks to two back-to-back triples by Scottie Wilbekin, Maccabi cut the lead to four (70-66) but couldn’t do much more. The Israelis couldn’t stop Fenerbahce from shooting 72% in twos (23/32) and that made all the difference.
Wilbekin finished the game with 15 points and 10 assists, dishing this number for the first time in his EuroLeague career.
Fenerbahce has now a 12-10 record, good enough at least for a tie on the eighth position of the standings, while Maccabi dropped to 10-12.