By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Shavon Shields and Devon Hall took charge as EA7 Emporio Armani Milan got an important 92-76 home win against Anadolu Efes, getting to a 3-6 record, while the Turks fell to 4-5.
Shields finished the game with 18 points on seven out of 10 made field goals, Hall added 15 points and they also got support from Nikola Mirotic with 14 points, Nicolo Melli had a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds, while Maodo Lo who made his damage in the first half scored 11.
Stefano Tonut also made eight key points off the bench and Shields talked about him: “Devon stepped up, Stefano stepped up, on the fourth quarter everybody contributed and this season is a process. We are not going to be perfect from the start and hopefully we can build on this”.
“We wanted this win so bad”, admitted Milan captain Melli, “we are going through a tough moment, so such a result can give us extra energy, the fans supported us and all together we can achieve everything”.
For Efes which was coming off a big road win in Monaco, Will Clyburn was the top scorer with 18 points, Darius Thompson added 17, and Shane Larkin had 13. No one from the guests, however, had answers in the last period.
A show in the fourth period
Milan which was coming from the defeat on the road to Virtus, had a small advantage in the first half, leading 43-39 after 20 minutes of action, but the game was far from over.
The dogfight continued with Efes taking the upper hand (61-58) in the 28th minute and Milan taking back the lead thanks to Shields at the end of the third period (63-61),
That proved to be the start of something bigger, as Milan with a 12-4 run built a 10-point advantage (75-65) with Hall picking up the pace.
As Efes coach Erden Can said after the final buzzer: “We had some foul troubles, but the way we played the last quarter was bad”.
Efes tried to react, but with two minutes left in the game, Milan was up by 11 (84-73) after a bucket by Shields. There was no coming back this time for Efes, as Milan had a 13-0 run (92-73) to end the game the right way.
“The players played extremely hard like they do all the time, they kept fighting, they kept defending, they kept rebounding, it was a team win”, said Milan coach Ettore Messina
The partial score in the fourth quarter was 29-15 for the Italians.
Photo credit: EA7 Emporio Armani Milan