Brose Baskets collected its first ever victory over Barcelona 74-70 in Group F of the Euroleague Top 16 to improve to 4-2, while leaving the Liga Endesa side on 2-4.
A 13-2 run over the course of six minutes of the fourth quarter broke the game open and featured two blocks by Nicolo Melli and five points from Janis Strelnieks, who led the winners with 16 points.
“Big win,” Bamberg coach Andrea Trinchieri said.
“When you play a Final Four team, when you play Barcelona, I told my players, this is a big night in town for us. We had to adjust a little bit to do something a little bit different than usual. We played with super super high tempo, super super high speed, super high intensity and we were ready to take the consequences of some mistakes.
“We made some mistakes, it was not our usual game where we move the ball and hit most of the open shots. Tonight, we shot below our averages on two-point and three-point shots, but we were able to keep Barcelona at 70. It was an example on defence from my whole team.”
A three from Ender Arslan in the final minute secured a maiden win for Darussafaka Dogus in the Top 16, as they beat Crvena Zvezda 69-66.
The Serbians went to 3-3 in Group E but will be disappointed that they were held scoreless for the last 4:27 of the game. Semih Erden paced the hosts with 14 points and six rebounds.
Panathinaikos broke the game open in the second quarter and never looked back as they comfortably saw-off Cedevita Zagreb 78-60 in the Croatian capital.
A 14-2 run in the second quarter turned an 18-12 first lead into a 39-22 advantage at the half as Miroslav Raduljica dominated inside with 21 points on 9/11 shooting and Nick Calathes added 10 points and 10 assists in the win.
“The most important thing is that we won,” Raduljica said. “But also important is the way how we won, that is with defence. Because in the past few weeks, we’ve been in a little bit of a crisis. We stayed together, but this time we showed how we can play and how we must play to win.”
Panathinaikos improve to 3-3 in Group E, dropping Cedevita to 2-4.
The third game in Group E saw Lokomotiv Kuban beat Unicaja Malaga 82-64 in Spain.
The Russian side led 34-32 at the half, then they raced away in the third quarter to lead 60-47 going into the final period.
Malcolm Delaney led the winners with 21 points and seven assists as Lokomotiv improved to 4-2. Unicaja dropped to 2-4.
