By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Derrick Williams scored 20 points and grabbed five rebounds, leading Bayern Munich to a 71 – 60 road win over Khimki Moscow after a comeback from 18 points down.
This victory improved Bayern to 10 – 10 and kept them on a postseason course. In coach Rimas Kurtinaitis’ return, Khimki suffered a potentially decisive loss since it dropped to 7 – 13 and two wins further from the playoff zone.
“The first ten minutes of the game were awful for us. We settled down and the last three quarters show the kind of team we are. Resilient. We came to play then,” Williams said in his post-game flash interview.
And his coach, Dejan Radonjic, agreed: “It is an important win for us, for sure. We have a difficult schedule ahead. The beginning of the game was very, very bad, defensively and offensively. After that, it was absolutely different. Defensively, it was quite good, allowing just 32 points in the last 30 minutes. Also, we played much better offensively after the first 10 minutes. This is an important success for us.”
Williams dropped 13 points in the second quarter to help his team recover from a deficit of 18 points, 10 – 28, at the beginning of the period. Thanks to him, the margin closed to five, 40 – 35 at the break.
The Alexey Shved-less and Anthony Gill-less Khimki looked empty of options in the third quarter where the team was restricted to 10 points. On the other end, the Bavarian squad answered with 21. With Vladimir Lucic (15 points, four rebounds) and Nihad Djedovic (10 points) adding their piece, the visiting squad proceeded to establish and preserve a lead around double-digit numbers for the remainder of the match.
Malcolm Thomas (13 points, 10 rebounds, five assists) and Jordan Mickey (13 points, six rebounds) were the only Khimki players that stood out. According to Rimas Kurtinaitis, his team had an off night: “This team is built for three-point shots and doesn’t have massive centers. In some good situations, we missed some good shots, having scored only 3 triples out of 21. Our 32 points in three quarters are too small numbers for the EuroLeague. On defense, we had some mistakes, but overall it was not bad. We should have played better on offense, and in this case we would have had a different result.”
Photo credit: Euroleague