The second week of the Turkish Airlines Euroleague Regular Season featured exciting action, a number of big comebacks and a handful of commanding showings over three nights of games. The excitement began in Group B on Tuesday as
Unicaja outlasted Zalgiris Kaunas 85-78 for its first win. Joel Freeland and Kristaps Valters starred for the winners with a combined 41 points – including 15 of Unicaja’s 18 in the extra session. Freeland also hauled in 12 rebounds. Two more Group B games on Wednesday separated the contenders from the pretenders.
CSKA Moscow rocked Brose Baskets Bamberg 94-74 as Nenad Krstic netted 19 points and Andrey Vorontsevich came off the bench for 13. Bamberg center Tibor Pleiss scored a career-high 17 in defeat. Defending champion
Panathinaikos mauled KK Zagreb 62-81 as all 12 Greens played at least 10 minutes. Romain Sato led a balanced attack with 13 points and Euroleague MVP Dimitris Diamantidis quarterbacked with 8 assists. Sean May did most of the damage for Zagreb with a Euroleague career high 23 points and 9 rebounds. CSKA and Panathinaikos are tied atop Group B at 2-0. In Group C,
Belgacom Spirou bested Anadolu Efes 79-80 on Justin Hamilton’s clutch shooting. Hamilton made the game-winning jumper with 11 seconds left and iced the win from the line. Caleb Green paced the winners with 18 points, while Hamilton tallied 12 points and 7 assists. And in Group A, Mirza Teletovic scored 12 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter as
Caja Laboral downed Bennet Cantu 81-69. Laboral is also 2-0. All three Group D contests were Thursday.
Unics beat Galatasaray Medical Park 64-68 on Henry Domercan’t triple in the closing seconds. The win was Kazan’s first ever in the Euroleague and spoiled Galatasaray’s home debut. Domercant scored 16 and leads the league with 23 points per game.
Montepaschi blasted Union Olimpija 79-57 in a game it led by 22 at the end of the first quarter. Bo McCalebb paced Siena with 17.
FC Barcelona Regal pasted Asseco Prokom 88-61 as Erazem Lorbek netted 20 and former Euroleague MVP Juan Carlos added 14 points and 5 assists. Montepaschi and Barca share the group lead at 2-0. In Group C
Real Madrid outlasted Emporio Armani Milan 85-78 on the strength of 21 points from Jaycee Carroll and 17 from Rudy Fernandez. Madrid is Group C’s only undefeated team.
Maccabi Electra held off Partizan mt:s 70-66. The hosts led by double figures before the Serbian champs stormed back in the fourth. Theo Papaloukas paced Maccabi with 13 points. In Group A,
SLUC Nancy blitzed Bizkaia Bilbao 87-73 with a 15-0 fourth quarter charge. Nicolas Batum flirted with a triple-double and finished with 26 points, 7 rebounds and 8 assists. And in Week 2’s Turkish Airlines Euroleague Game of the Week,
Olympiacos defeated Fenerbahce Ulker 81-74. Vassilis Spanoulis tallied 22 points and 7 assists and Georgios Printezis added 21 for the winners. Now there is time to sit back, breath deep and reflect on an awesome week of basketball before the excitement hits back hard next week.