Basketball Champions League Playoffs Week 2 Recap: Making a statement

By Stefan Djordjevic/ sdjordjevic@eurohoops.net

The Basketball Champions League playoffs continued with a full schedule of eight games. There was a lot of interesting much-awaited duels that played out and put some things into motion.

Starting with Group I, Hapoel Unet-Credit Holon got a road win over Tofas which will them some room to breathe going forward as they went up 2-0 thanks to a strong outing by three players who scored 20+ points – Tyrus McGee, Chris Johnson, and CJ Harris.

Happy Casa Brindisi’s American duo of Darius Thompson and Josh Bostic gave the Italian team a somewhat unexpected win over a Pinar Karsiyaka squad that has been in form recently.

Group J featured a Spanish duel between Hereda San Pablo Burgos and Lenovo Tenerife which belonged to the reigning champs who dismantled the latter in an impressive fashion with 17 threes. Igokea was impressive as well against VEF Riga on the road, making things far more interesting going forward.

AEK played its first game in the playoffs this week and it was a good start. The Greeks took down Turk Telekom, led by Daryl Macon and Jonas Maciulis. In the other Group K match, Nizhny Novgorod made a comeback and turned the tables against Strasbourg on the road thanks to a big performance by Kasey Shepherd off the bench.

Last but definitely not least, Group L had some drama on, as well as off the court. ERA Nymburk got a close one-point win over Dinamo Sassari and coach Gianmarco Pozzeco didn’t like at all how his team was treated by the referees in the final moments of the game.

He was quite furious and to make things worse, his players’ locker room has allegedly been robbed. Now the Italians are 0-2 and it will be very hard to bounce back in such a strong group but perhaps they can redirect their fury in the upcoming games and bounce back.

The last duel of the week belonged to Casademont Zaragoza which took down Brose Bamberg with strong defense and a very quick offense. The Germans find themselves in trouble with two losses, all after being the only undefeated team in the regular season.

Group I

Tofas Bursa – Hapoel Unet-Credit Holon 81-93
Happy Casa Brindisi – Pinar Karsiyaka 83-79

Group J

Hereda San Pablo Burgos – Lenovo Tenerife 101-79
VEF Riga – Igokea 75-91

Group K

AEK – Turk Telekom 74-65
SIG Strasbourg – Nizhny Novgorod 68-73

Group L

ERA Nymburk – Dinamo Sassari 90-89
Casademont Zaragoza – Brose Bamberg 77-65

Photo Credit: Basketball Champions League