 Real Madrid earned its first victory of the Euroleague season before its home crowd and handed Asseco Prokom its second defeat 94-72 on Wednesday in the Spanish capital. Head coach Ettore Messina’s team improved to 1-1 in Group D on the strength of an electrifying offensive display in the first half, hitting 81% from two-point range and 6-of-13 from long range, to go into the break up 18 and with the game well in hand. Darjus Lavrinovic led the winners with 19 points. Louis Bullock seconded his center's effort with 14, and Jorge Garbajosa scored 13, all in the decisive first half. Rimantas Kaukenas chipped in with 11 points while Sergi Vidal and Sergio Llull notched 10 points apiece. Qyntel Woods paced Prokom with a game-high 22 points. David Logan scored 19 and Ronnie Burrell had 14 points and 13 rebounds. Apart from barely missing from the field, Madrid also did its job on defense. After Logan scored a quick 15 points in the opening minutes to keep Prokom in the game, Madrid made sure he would not be a factor and shut him down while continuing to pour it on to run away with the game.
Garbajosa opened the scoring for Real Madrid with a three-pointer from the top of key. Daniel Ewing answered by slicing in for a layup. Travis Hansen drained a triple, and Logan matched him with one of his own in a frenetic first quarter. Lavrinovic scored to put Madrid up 8-5, but Logan attacked the basket for 2 more. Logan scored on back-back steals the guard turned into easy breakaway baskets for a 10-11 advantage. After a Madrid timeout, Bullock drilled a three from the wing. Logan, completely on fire, reached 15 points on back-to-back threes. Lavrinovic hit a triple from the corner, and Vidal finished a fastbreak to put Madrid up 20-17. Woods scored in the paint. Llull responded with a three, but Woods drained a deep triple. A floater and three-pointer from Garbajosa sent Madrid into the second quarter up 30-22.
 Kaukenas made an easy layup to get the lead into double digits at the start of the quarter. Woods assisted a slashing Jan-Hendrik Jagla, but Lavrinovic finished a break with a slam to push the lead to 13. After a short quiet spell from both teams, Kaukenas swished an open jumper. Another empty trip from Prokom was taken advantage of by Hansen, who hit a tough jumper to put Madrid up 41-26. Burrell tried to stop the bleeding with a dunk, but Garbajosa dropped a jumper. Woods got 2 with a move in the post and then, after the rare Madrid miss, he assisted Burrell for a layin. But Kaukenas got a jumper to fall with the shot clock running down and Garbajosa got another three to keep extending the lead as Madrid went into the half up 51-33.
Woods started the third period firing a three-pointer from the wing. Lavrinovic responded by pulling in an offensive board and putting it back over two Prokom defenders, but Woods, knowing that it was now of never, stepped up and drained a three-pointer from the top of the key. The Prokom forward then assisted Burrell for an inside score, 55-41. Madrid turned up the defense once again to shut down Woods and grew its advantage with Lavrinovic scoring 4 free throws in a row. After Pape Sow scored inside, Vidal drove in and got a tough layin to fall. Lull earned 2 more on a goaltending call, and then picked up an unsportsmanlike foul from Woods on a breakaway and made the 2 free throws. Madrid was not to be stopped and went up by 25 as Vidal swished a three from the corner as the shot clock buzzer sounded and Madrid coasted to a 68-45 lead at the end of the third quarter.
The tide did not turn in the fourth as Lavrinovic scored inside and Bullock drilled another three-pointer. Novica Velickovic hit from one step behind the three-point arc and Madrid went up 78-47 after Vidal converted a steal into a layup. Bullock and Woods traded three-pointers, and then the two scorers each hit from two-point range. Prokom scored 6 points on baskets by Logan, Woods and Burrell, but Vladimir Dasic scored from deep and then assisted a cutting Lavrinovic for the easy bucket, 90-62. Burrell and Ewing nailed three-pointers and Woods broke away for a layup to get the deficit down to 20, but the game was long over by then.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Euroleague.net
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