Tornike Shengelia hit the game-winning free throws with 1.8 seconds left to help Baskonia to a narrow 92-91 win at Unics Kazan.
Shane Larkin, who was doubtful for the game with the flu had earlier drained a rainbow three-pointer with less than ten seconds left to 90 lead, Keith Langford answered for Unics from beyond the arc, but Shengelia sank the game-winning free throws.
“You can never expect game-winning shots like that, but we just stayed together, really tried to lock in on the defensive end, and Toko Shengelia made some big free throws at the end,” Larkin said.
“Our last couple of games we’ve been locking in on the defensive end, but this team has great offensive players.”
Larkin paced the winners with 22 points.
Darussafaka Dogus inflicted a fourth defeat of the EuroLeague season on Real Madrid with an 81-68 win in Istanbul.
Madrid led by ten at one point, held Darussafaka held the visitors scoreless for the last five minutes of the second quarter and the first three of the third during which they reeled off 17 straight points and never looked back.
“The important thing is not the stats,” said Darussafaka coach David Blatt. “It’s that we played with heart and we played with passion. We had a great crowd here tonight.
“People support the team and respond to the team. At the end of the day, this year that’s what we are trying to do is build a fan base and be of course a successful, competitive team. Tonight the atmosphere was great and I’m happy we were able to beat a great team.”
Bradley Wanamaker went for 27 points as Darussafaka Dogus improve to 6-6.
Olympiacos pulled away late in the fourth quarter to beat Zalgiris 88-75 in Kaunas.
However the final score was deceptive with 23 lead changes and ten ties in the first 30 minutes, but Olympiacos owned the fourth period to run away with the victory and improve to an 8-4 record. Zalgiris dropped to 4-8.
Matt Lojeski and Kostas Papanikolaou led Olympiacos with 16 points each.
Brose Bamberg grabbed its second straight win as they deservedly got the better of Anadolu Efes 91-83.
Fabien Causeur paced the winners with 28 points – a new EuroLeague career-high – on 8/9 two-point shooting and 3/5 three-pointers as the German giants rise to 4-8 while Anadolu drop to 6-6.
“I believe it was one of our best games for consistency and physical impact,” said Bamberg coach Andrea Trincheri.
“Efes is the most athletic team in the EuroLeague. They have size, athletes and tonight, we tied their energy and that was the first key of the game. The second key was that we played stable expect two, three minutes in the end of the first quarter and the beginning of the second quarter. We played stable for a whole game, moved the ball and everybody was ready.”
Crvena Zvezda got itself an easy 83-58 win over a Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv side that simply fell apart in the second quarter.
After a close first period, Red Star held Maccabi to just ten points in the second to turn a 19-14 lead into a 42-28 cushion, to which the Israeli side could not come back from.
Zvezda not only won by the biggest margin in EuroLeague action, but also allowed its fewest points in a single EuroLeague game, besting its previous mark of 59. This game also marked the first time in a EuroLeague game that one team – in this case Maccabi – did not shoot a single free throw.
Marko Simonovic scored 14 points for the winners. Both sides have 5-7 records.
