Turkish Airlines Euroleague Week 3 promised plenty and started living up to that from the very start. Of Wednesday’s four games, there was one come-from-behind win and two cakewalks as Caja Laboral, CSKA Moscow and Montepaschi Siena remained undefeated and became the first three teams to three wins. Thursday featured FC Barcelona Regal joining them at 3-0, two others winning for the first time and a thriller decided at the buzzer. And in Friday's lone game, defending champion Panathinaikos made it five teams with perfect records thus far. However, that won;t last long as the schedule pits four of them against another in Week 4! The first game of Week 3 saw
Laboral edge Olympiacos 81-79 in Group A on Pablo Prigioni’s game-winning jumper with 1.7 seconds remaining. It was his only basket of the night. Mirza Teletovic paced the winners with 20 points. Vassilis Spanoulis tallied 19 points and 7 assists for the Reds.
CSKA blasted KK Zagreb 47-89 in Group B as Nenad Krstic led a well-balanced attack with 15 points and Andrei Kirilenko added 14 in his first game since being named bwin MVP for October. CSKA outscored Zagreb by at least 9 points in all four quarters. In Group D,
Montepaschi routed Galatasaray Medical Park 103-77 as Rimas Kaukenas scored 24 and Bo McCalebb recorded 19 points and 4 assists. Siena led from start to finish in an awesome offensive performance. Wrapping up the Wednesday slate,
Union Olimpija topped Asseco Prokom 70-62 at Stozice Arena thanks to 23 points from Danny Green. Group D wrapped up Thursday as
Barca battered Unics Kazan 65-93 behind an unstoppable Erazem Lorbek, who contributed 24 points on 9-of-11 shooting. Barca meets Siena next week, meaning only one of them will get to 4-0. In Group A
Fenerbahce Ulker outlasted SLUC Nancy 90-86 for the Turkish champs’ first win of the season. Thabo Sefolosha led six Fener scorers in double figures with 19 points.
Bennet Cantu bested Bizkaia Bilbao 78-69 as Giorgi Shermadini shined again with 16 points on 8-of-9 shooting. Cantu is alone in second place in Group A with a 2-1 record.
Maccabi Electra downed Real Madrid 88-82 to hand the visitors their first loss. Jordan Farmar paced Maccabi with 27 points on near-perfect shooting to set up a three-way tie for first in Group C. Joining those two atop that group is
Anadolu Efes, which beat EA7 Emporio Armani 54-62 in the Turkish Airlines Euroleague Game of the Week in Milano, Italy. Stanko Barac scored 16 and Tarence Kinsey 13 for Efes.
Partizan mt:s topped Belgacom Spirou 91-81 in an eciting contest in Belgrade. Acie Law enjoyed a breakout game with 26 points for the winners. And
Unicaja edged Brose Baskets 78-79 on Berni Rodriguez’s score with 4 seconds to play. Joel Freeland led Unicaja with 18 points. The week closed when
Panathinaikos crushed Zalgiris 92-75 on Friday. Reigning Euroleague MVP Dimitris Diamantidis paced the Greens with 16 points, though it took a strong second half for the champs after Zalgiris led by 4 at halftime in new head coach Aleksandar Trifunovic's debut. Panathinaikos now faces a Week 4 showdown against fellow unbeaten side CSKA.