Darussafaka Dogus claimed the final EuroLeague Playoff spot at the expense of Crvena Zvezda after a convincing 78-62 win in Istanbul.
Both teams finished with 16-14 records, but Darussafaka took eighth place thanks to beating Red Star in both of their games.
Darussafaka will face top seeded Real Madrid in a best-of-five playoff series starting in less than two weeks.
“It wasn’t going to be easy,” said Darussafaka coach David Blatt. “You’ve all seen Zvezda the whole year, how tough they have played every team, how competitive they are. In the EuroLeague in general you are not going to find too many easy games, and certainly not a game of this importance. But you know I thought we deserved to win.
“I thought we played great basketball, particularly on the defensive end, and for good portions of the game offensively, as well. We shared the ball. We tried to play like a team that wants to play together, and that’s important.”
Brad Wanamaker paced the winners with 22 points with Scottie Wilbekin adding 16 points, six assists and four steals.
With the events in Istanbul, there was the matter of finalising the Playoff seeds. Real Madrid were assured of the number one seed last week. They solidified their position with a 97-80 win over Anadolu Efes.
Jaycee Carroll led the winners with 29 points on 7/8 three-point shooting.
Real will play Darussafaka Dogus in the Playoffs while Anadolu Efes will face off against Olympiacos.
CSKA Moscow finished the season in second and they ended their regular season with a 90-86 win over Olympiacos in the Russian capital.
The Muscovites will take on Baskonia in the Playoffs.
In a match that was purely for pride, Unics Kazan lifted themselves off the foot of the EuroLeague table with a comfortable 91-68 win over EA7 Milano who finish the campaign bottom.
