iurbentia Basket Bilbao made a fantastic fourth-quarter comeback to defeat Buducnost m-tel 65-67 on the road in Montenegro on Tuesday and thus take exclusive hold on first place in Group H. Bilbao improved to 2-0 and Buducnost dropped to 0-2 after going a full 7 minutes, 19 seconds of the final quarter without scoring a point. Javi Salgado was the match-winner for Bilbao, scoring 10 of his 20 points in that final quarter and led his team to the victory. Marko Banic and Quincy Lewis followed him with 10 points apiece. Buducnost m-tel has only two scorers in double figures, Ivan Maras and Nemanja Gordic, who nailed 12 each.
Banic and Fred Weis scored for Bilbao to open the game before Maras hit from long-distance for Buducnost. Paco Vazquez and Quincey Lewis put Bilbao up 3-9 from the perimeter, but Buducnost answered with Vlada Micov, Vladimir Dasic and Gordic to tie 9-9. Renaldas Seibutis scored for the last Bilbao lead before Buducnost took control of the game with an 11-2 run that bridged the first and second quarters and put the hosts ahead 20-13. Salgado got Bilbao within 25-21 with a triple midway through the second quarter, but Vazquez committed an unsportsmanlike foul that Dasic converted to lift Buducnost’s lead to 6 points, 37-31, at halftime.
The great shooting shape of Buducnost destroyed Bilbao’s defense in the third quarter. Nikola Otasevic and Marko Simonovic together with Maras and Micov hit from perimeter in every decisive moment and increased the Buducnost advantage to 13 points, 58-45, after 30 minutes. With aggressive defense and a 0-6 run in first 2:27 of the fourth quarter, Bilbao punished the hosts badly organized attacks to move within 58-51 on the scoreboard. Buducnost head coach Dejan Radonjic took a timeout, but his team’s next couple of attacks also finished without points, a trend that would proceed to last through the first 7 minutes of the quarter. Bilbao, however, also failed to score for more then 4 minutes, until Salgado hit to make it 58-53 with under 4 minutes to play. Luke Recker followed with a triple as the visitors’ run reached 0-11. Finally, Gordic stopped Buducnost’s bleeding to make it 60-56, but Salgado answered with 4 points to tie 60-60 with 1:36 to play. Maras shot over Weis to put Buducnost ahead again, but Lewis responded with a running three-pointer with 32 seconds left to make it 62-63 for Bilbao. Gordic was blocked on his next shot attempt and Salgado got to the line, where he made the score 62-65 with 11 seconds left, ensuring that free throws would not hurt Bilbao’s comeback to take first place in the group.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Milivoje Kovacevic, Podgorica
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