At midseason of its debut ULEB Cup, PGE Turow Zgorzelec took over first place in Group I by downing former champion Hapoel Migdal Jerusalem 78-68 at home in Poland on Tuesday. Turow raised its record to 4-1 and is now exclusive group leader at midseason, while Hapoel fell to 3-2, still good for second place. David Logan exploded for Turow with 34 points in 40 minutes on the floor, even though he did not score at all in the first quarter. He made up for it, however, by scoring all of Turow's 15 points in the second quarter, adding 19 after haltime to help his team take over the game and stun Hapoel. Thomas Kelati added 14 points for the winners and Slobodan Ljubotina 13, while Dragisa Drobnjak registered an 11-point, 11-rebound double-double. Hapoel got 17 points from Timmy Bowers and 15 from Sharon Shason. The MVP of the previous two weeks, Jaime Arnold, contributed 14 points but pulled no rebounds while Anthony Roberson added 10 points for the visitors. Hapoel has won all its home games and lost both road games so far.
The teams stayed close to each other throughout most of the first quarter. The lead changed hands ten times, as both defenses didn't play a big role in those minutes. Hapoel used a great start by Bowers and Arnold, who scored 8 points each and shared 7 perfect field goals as Hapoel took a 15-19 lead after one quarter. Logan found his rhythm early in the second with back-to-back three-pointers but Hapoel stayed on top with points by Shason, whose basket made it 21-26. Logan continued to carry Turow on his back in a big offensive display, but his teammates missed a couple of chances to tie the score. Arnold and Bowers didn't miss the opportunity to extend Hapoel's lead once again, to 27-34. Logan added another triple to reach 15 points, which turned out to be all of Turow's points in the second quarter, while Bowers beat the buzzer with a three-pointer to keep Hapoel in control by 30-37 at halftime. Hapoel managed to score just 3 points in the first 5 minutes after the break, and Logan as happy to take advantage. He added 7 more points to give his team a 45-42 lead, and even after Hapoel took a timeout, Turow continued to strike, taking a 55-49 lead at the end of three quarters. After 4 minutes of the last quarter, Logan struck again with 5 points in a row that put Turow on top of Hapoel by 11 points, 64-53. Bowers and Shason kept Hapoel alive for a while, but Logan nailed a fade-away three-pointer to beat the shot clock and make it a double-digit game again, 69-59. Drobnjak, in a very effective game, and Kelati joined Logan during the closing minutes to secure a 10-point win that could prove to be worth it's weight in gold by the end of the regular season.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
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