By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Vasilije Micic scored 24 points and Rodrigue Beaubois dropped 16 points out of his 20 points in the fourth period as Anadolu Efes pushed back a Fenerbahce Beko comeback from down 22 to take an 84 – 79 win in the EuroLeague Istanbul derby.
Shane Larkin (10 points, nine assists) was the one to hit the most important basket of the game by draining a very tough 3-pointer for the 80 – 75 with 32 seconds to play. He was 1-5 from beyond the arc before that shot. Tibor Pleiss blocked Sehmus Hazer on the other end and Beaubois made two free throws to seal the win for Efes.
Fenerbahce was trailing 49 – 27 early in the second half and was down 16 one minute into the fourth period. Hazer, Marko Guduric and Dyshawn Pierre led the comeback charge for Fener with the latter capping a 0 – 10 run that put his team a 66 – 63 shooting distance.
The main reason why Fener didn’t manage to tie the game or go up in the score was Beaubois. The French guard had 11 points in a row to keep Fener at bay, being the only Efes player who scored in the last eight minutes save for Larkin and his dagger.
Pierre finished with 19 points for Fener. Achille Polonara had 15 points, Nando De Colo posted 13 points plus five rebounds while Hazer scored 13. Guduric added 11 points.
“I believe our effort should have been from the start,” Fener coach Sasha Djordjevic said. “In the first half we played without confidence, not the same eyes-of-the-tiger like I like to say, and a fanatic defense that is our characteristic. Then in the second half, we came back really penny short of a dollar. A great shot from Larkin decided the game and one from Beaubois. All three of their guards had a good game. Micic led them with the good start in the opening, and then the other two finished the game. But I think we could have gotten it. It would not be unfair if we had won the game.”
“Unacceptable”
The final result for Efes was a win but coach Ergin Ataman but was frustrated with the fact that the game became a thriller down the stretch after his team was up by 22.
“For us it is unacceptable this last quarter, after leading the game by 22 points, to make all the wrong decisions,” Ataman said. “To shoot the air balls from 7-8 meters, then allow them to score 31 points, it is not good for our road to the Final Four to win the title. We won the game, but we will talk in the locker room that this is not correct. We risked the game. Fenerbahce made a great effort to come back, but we stopped playing defense, we shot all the wrong shots and it became a last-minute game.”