Maccabi Electra lived to fight another day in the Euroleague as Devin Smith helped them to a 73-64 win over ALBA Berlin at the O2 World in Group E of the Top 16.
As a result of this loss, ALBA Berlin bow out of the Euroleague despite a courageous effort.
“First I have to give my respect to ALBA,” Maccabi coach Guy Goodes said. “They played an outstanding season with a great and unique style. They play very tough and aggressive so that we came here with some worries.
“ALBA beat us in Tel Aviv with their aggressiveness and I told my players that we have to match this aggressiveness tonight. And that is what we did. We fought, we boxed out on rebounds and in the final minutes we found a way to stop ALBA with our defence.”
Not just defence though, but having Smith helped a great deal as well. The veteran, who just signed a new extension with the current Euroleague champions celebrated by leading all scorers with 28 points. A haul that included seven three-pointers.
Alex Renfroe led ALBA with 10 points, 9 assists and 3 steals. Jamel McLean and Leon Radosvic each scored 10 as well but it wasn’t to be their night.
Panathinaikos secured fourth spot in Group E despite losing 69-68 away to Red Star in Belgrade.
The Greeks advanced to the last eight thanks to Maccabi’s win in Berlin rendering their result meaningless but still played to the end.
As it turned out though, Red Star, who are already eliminated won the game thanks to Boban Maranjovic’s free throws with 2.2 seconds remaining. Dimitris Diamantidis has a chance to win it, but he was well marked, allowing the Greek star little hope of a solid shot.
Maranjovic finished with a double-double, his record-breaking sixteenth of the season, amassing 12 points and 16 rebounds. The big man broke two more single-season records along the way, setting a mark for most rebounds in a season with 256, and the greatest accumulated performance index rating with 616 this season.
Panathinaikos will face CSKA Moscow in the quarter-final, Playoffs after the Russian champions eased past EA7 Milano 88-79 to clinch top spot in Group F.
Sasha Kaun paced CSKA with 19 points on 7/9 shooting plus he pulled down 8 rebounds in a deserved victory.
After coming within inches of qualifying for the Final Four last season, EA7 Milano bow out at the Top 16 stage this term with a 4-10 record.
That result knocked Fenerbahce down to second place in the group, but they did their job by beating local rivals Anadolu Efes 83-72 at the Ulker Sports Arena.
Despite the loss, Anadolu qualified for the quarter-finals, making sure that Turkey has two teams vying for Final Four spots.
“We had lost three games in a row,” said Fenerbahce’s Andrew Goudelock, who led the winners with 24 points. “We wanted to come in here and get a win. It was really important for us and we were really focused.
“Efes has beaten us three out of four times and they are not a joke. We are going to see those guys three or four more times this year; we wanted to send a message and I think we did that. It is going to tough – whether we play ALBA Berlin or Maccabi, we know we are going to have a tough test ahead, so we are going to refocus, watch some film and see what happens.”
It means that Laboral Kutxa miss out on the quarter-finals as they lost to Unicaja Malaga 93-84 in the third Group F game.
If Laboral would have won against their Liga Endesa rivals, then they would have been advancing but due to the head-to-head advantage that Anadolu owns, the Turkish side qualify.
Ryan Toolson led the winners with 17 points.
