Galatasaray won at home in the first game against their semifinal rivas Besiktas in the Turkish Basketball Playoff Series.
TBL(Beko Basketball League) playoff series started on Tuesday and Galatasaray hosted Besiktas at Abdi İpekci Arena. The match was important was Galatasaray finished the league at first place with only 5 losses, however, Besiktas was able to beat their rivals two times this year. This time, Galatasaray was the triumphant.
In the first quarter, Besiktas offense was dried out Galatasaray built the lead by 8 ponts with 19-11. Besiktas tried the zone defense in the beginning of the second, which payed off for a couple of occasions and trimmed the difference to 4 points with a lay up from David Hawkins. However, Galatasaray responded by utilitzing Luksa Andric and finished the first half with an fourteen points margin: 42-28.
Besiktas was a very inconsistent team throughout the year and they showed that again. After a dominant display from Jamont Gordon in the third quarter, the lead was going up further, to 17 points: 52-35. The wake-up call came from Serhat Cetin and Carlos Arroyo after TV timeout. They triggered an 14-2 series to comeback and Besiktas managed to get within 5 points behind, 54-49. The end of the quarter ended with a Goksenin Koksal 3pointer and 58-53.
After an exciting fourth quarter, the match ended with drama. Serhat Cetin sent a 3pointer to cut the difference to three points. After Cevher Özer scored from free throws, Galatasaray was leading 73-71 in the last seconds. Carlos Arroyo, decided to send a three-pointer alltough the lead was two and he ball just came out after hitting inside of the rim. Last quarter hero of Eurochallange final and Fenerbahce playoff series with his decisive shots, failed this time. Galatasaray won 75:74 and now leads the possible five game series 1-0.
The other semi-fnais series, which is between Anadolu Efes and Banvit will start on Wednesday, at Bandirma.
