By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Shane Larkin and Vasilije Micic partnered up and led Anadolu Efes to a 90-88 home win against feisty Zenit St Petersburg. Efes improved to 6-2 compared to Zenit’s 2-6 record in Turkish Airlines EuroLeague.
Zenit was down by a 25-point margin (67-42) in the third quarter but made a huge comeback and made it a one-possession game (85-83) with less than 30 seconds on the clock. However, Micic and Pleiss managed to keep them at bay with Efes‘ last five points and secure the win.
Micic scored 24 points without missing a single shot (4-4 twos, 3-3 threes, 7-7 free throws) while also dishing six assists. Shane Larkin followed with 22 points in addition to Pleiss and Sertac Sanli’s 13 points each.
For Zenit, Austin Hollins nailed 26 points while Gustavo Ayon added 21 and Anton Pushkov 12 points.
“Unacceptable for a team of our level. We lost our game discipline”
Coach Ergin Ataman was not happy at all with the way his squad played the last quarter: “It is unacceptable to allow 38 points in the fourth quarter. Unacceptable for a team of our level. We started to get funny, we lost our game discipline 100%. We did not get any contribution from our bench players in the second half after we were up 25 points. We will think about that, we will work on it, but it is a huge problem what happened in the last quarter for a team that has a goal to win the EuroLeague.”
Micic also agreed with the coach’s statement and commented on his perfect shooting: “We did not close the game well. We made a run in the third quarter, we had a great beginning of the third quarter. Unfortunately, we had to finish it off in the last minutes. But that is a EuroLeague game and something we will probably have to face many times this year. Most important is to win. I want to congratulate my teammates, we put in great hustle, we missed two important players, and besides that everything was good. I did not know [that I did not miss a shot], honestly. I never think about it, the game is a live thing, I adjust in the moment and that is something I have been doing since I came here.”
Efes started off better leading 21-14 after the first quarter and stayed ahead 42-30 at halftime thanks to the effort of Larkin, Sanli and Micic. It could’ve been a far worse situation for Zenit had they not grabbed ten offensive rebounds which kept them alive securing second-chance points.
Efes took over in the second half and was increasing the gap fast reaching the 25-point margin (67-42). However, Hollins, Ayon and Pushkov helped Zenit recover in the fourth quarter (85-83) and make it a one-possession game. Despite the big comeback effort, Efes got away with the win thanks to Pleiss and Micic.
Game Highlights
Photo Credit: Turkish Airlines EuroLeague