Kostas Sloukas played a pivotal role in the second Istanbul derby played in 24 hours as he led Fenerbahce to a comfortable 103-87 win over Galatasaray.
Playing with talisman Bogdan Bogdanovic, The Greek point guard duly stepped up to lead Fenerbahce with 24 points, Bobby Dixon had 22 and Ekpe Udoh added a double-double of 21 points and 13 rebounds as they remain unblemished after four games.
“It was a very big win,” said Sloukas. “Everybody knows that against Galatasaray it’s more important than just another game, and I’m very happy and proud that we gave everybody our heart and soul here to win a difficult game.”
Galatasaray, paced by 16 points from Austin Daye are still searching for their first win after four games.
Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv won its second straight EuroLeague game under caretaker coach Rami Hadar and claimed their tenth consecutive victory over Zalgiris with an 87-74 win in Kaunas.
Andrew Goudelock led Maccabi with 18 points with Sonny Weems amassing 16 as the Israeli side improve to 2-2 after starting 0-2.
“I think defensively we stepped up compared to the game before and that was the key,” said Hadar. “We are still not so defensive; there is a long way to be there, but I think today we were more focused and executed better our system.”
Lukas Lekavicius paced Zalgiris with 16 points, but drops to 1-3.
Barcelona welcomed Petteri Koponen back into action but have yet another player potentially on the injury list after they edged Brose Baskets 78-74.
Barcelona won with efforts of 18 points and six assists from Tyrese Rice and 13 and three assists from Victor Claver but Ante Tomic was forced off with a knock late on in the contest.
The Catalan side improved to 2-2 while Bamberg fall to 1-3.
Panathinaikos eased past Crvena Zvezda 70-59 in Athens as Xavi Pascual’s side never let the Serbians into the game.
The victory improved Panathinaikos’s record to 3-1, while Zvezda dropped to 2-2. Other than the visitors’ opening lead, Panathinaikos controlled things for 40 minutes. The hosts used defence to open a double-digit margin in the first quarter and increased it to 23 points early in the second. Behind Nick Calathes and James Gist, Panathinaikos had a 46-25 cushion at halftime and Zvezda never threatened.
Gist had 17 points to lead Panathinaikos.
