Benetton Basket Treviso is the first team to qualify to the finals of the Citto di Roma tournament as the winner of Group B following the results in the first two games in Day 2. FMP's 81-66 win over Lottomatica Roma in the second game of the day on Monday in Rome, Italy paved Benetton's way to the finals following a double overtime win earlier today over CSKA Moscow. Benetton holds a 2-0 record while CSKA and FMP are tied with 1-1 followed by Lottomatica with 0-2. Benetton will enjoy a tie-breaker in any scenario over CSKA and FMP after beating both sides already. FMP and CSKA will meet in the last game of Day 2 to decide the second spot in the group. After the unexpected loss to Benetton yesterday FMP was ready to show its face and took over the game against Lottomatica right from the start, on the way to a 48-28 lead at the break. Nikola Siladi led FMP with 16 points and 9 rebounds, Stefan Popovski-Turanjanin added 14 while the promising future point guard Nenad Miljenovic came close to a triple double with 9 points, 9 assists and 8 rebounds. Alessandro Di Pasquale led the losing side with 15 points and Riccardo Ferrarese had 14. Despite 30 turnovers, double more than its opponent, FMP was more accurate from the field and dominated the glass 49-30 to keep itself safe.
It took FMP five minutes to take the lead after Miljenovic scored a lay up, to soon spark a 14-0 run into the second quarter. Popovski-Turanjanin wrote his first points and caught a good momentum to reach 7 individual points in a row, before Miljenovic pushed the gap higher with points and assists. His steal and dunk set the distance on 19, and his fifth assist to a three point shot by Milos Zivkovic right before the half time buzzer wrote a record difference of 20, 48-28, after 20 minutes. Throughout the entire second quarter Lottomatica didn't find any answers and saw the gap even extend. It scored the last six points of the game to make it just a 15 point loss of a one-sided game.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Yarone Arbel, Euroleague.net
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