By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
This victory improved the Turkish team’s EuroLeague regular season record to 14 – 7 while the defending champs are now 15 – 6 and in danger of falling to the second place of the standings if Real Madrid wins tomorrow’s game vs Baskonia.
As you can see in the stats the hosts performed brilliantly on the defensive end with Ekpe Udoh (15 points, 11 rebounds, 2 blocks) playing a big part in Fener‘s disruption of their opponents’ attacks. These efforts were maximized in the third quarter where coach Obradovic‘s players outscored their guests 24 – 11, to recover in style after a first half gone bad (36 – 40).
CSKA Moscow fell behind 62 – 41 in the beginning of the fourth period but Nando De Colo (23 points, 4 assists) took action from beyond the arc to keep his team in hot pursuit. However some poor shot selection and Fener‘s highly determined defense didn’t allow his team to truly recover.
With the score 73 – 67 and 1:26 to go, CSKA missed many opportunities to become actually threatening while on the other end Fenerbahce got stuck as well. It didn’t matter for the hosts that locked the victorious result when James Nunnally made it 75 – 69 from the line, eight seconds before the final buzzer.
Bogdan Bogdanovic dropped 12 points and dished out 8 assists for the winning squad while Luigi Datome added 10 (including key shooting in the third quarter) plus 6 rebounds.
Cory Higgins was the only other player with double-figures (11 points), apart from De Colo.