By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Shane Larkin signed in right on time to hit back-to-back threes and lift Anadolu Efes Istanbul to a 78-72 victory over LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne at home for Round 25 of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague.
With Efes barely hanging on to a 54-50 lead at the end of the third quarter, Larkin and Adrien Moerman hit consecutive threes to give Efes a double-digit lead and secure the win. The Turkish side improved to a 12-11 record with their second victory of the week and managed to tie the series against ASVEL following their Round 3 defeat (75-73).
Larkin led all scorers of Ergin Ataman’s squad with 19 points and 8 assists and 4 steals, on 4/7 three-pointers.
“Larkin found his points on a day that others missed a lot of possessions,” said coach Ataman after the win. “We lost a lot of possessions with turnovers, but every game is difficult in the EuroLeague. It is an important victory for us. Let’s keep going on.”
Krunoslav Simon added 14 points and 5 rebounds for Efes, Tibor Pleiss tapped 12 points and 6 rebounds and Rodrigue Beaubois was added to the list of top scorers with 10 points.
Just a day after he signed a contract extension with ASVEL for the remainder of the season, Marcos Knight registered a new EuroLeague career-high with 21 points and 12 rebounds, though his effort wasn’t enough to help the French side recover from a two-game skid.
Chris Jones and Matthew Strazel followed with 13 points each for ASVEL that now falls to a 9-15 record in the standings.
Photo credit: EuroLeague