In the 7th round of the EuroLeague, Anadolu Efes defended the home court by beating Zalgiris Kaunas (94-60). This was the second win of the reigning champ, while the squad from Lithuania is the only win-less team after seven rounds.
Chris Singleton made his 209th consecutive appearance in the EuroLeague and is now tied with with Nikos Zisis for the all-time record. And even more impressive is the fact that Singleton didn’t miss the EuroLeague game since 2015.
Tibor Pleiss was on fire this evening and the German big man scored 17 points and 7 rebounds. Young blood Filip Petrusev collected 14 with 6 rebounds, while both Krunoslav Simon and Vasilije Micic ended the match with 11.
Niels Giffey was the top scorer in the match and, after him, Josh Nebo made it a four-point lead for Zalgiris against the home team. The last advantage of the guests were the 6-4 lead after little less than 3 minutes oo the gameh. In those moments, Anadolu Efes took control and 10 points in a row. The home team didn’t allow its opponent to score for about four minutes when Lucas Lekavicius made a two-pointer (14-8). Lukas Lekavicius and Arturas Milaknis each netted 14 for Zalgiris.
The end of the first quarter belonged to Efes and in the second period the Turkish club continued to protect its court. Zalgiris tried to attack, but the home team used every opportunity to increase its advantage. There were some attractive moves, like Tibor Pleiss’ dunk, but Ergin Ataman’s team played smart. The defense of the home team was better in the first 20 minutes than in the first six rounds of the EuroLeague and the score at the end (44-29) was the result of that defense.
In the third quarter, the advantage of the home team was growing and the crowd at the Sinan Erdem Sports Hall to see excellent defense and fast movement of the ball during that period. The advantage was increasing and at the end of the period Efes was leading by 23 points (69-46).
During the last period, the home team didn’t put its guard off, players continued with an excellent defense and the lead was unreachable for the Lithuanian squad. Final score of the match was 94-60.
