BC Khimki defeated Barcelona 78-65 in Moscow as they continued their unbeaten home record in the Euroleague.
This win improves Khimki to 2-0 in Group F while dropping Barca to 1-1 with their first away loss of the Euroleague season. The Catalan giants were without Juan Carlos Navarro who didn’t travel to Russia due to injury.
Zoran Planinic led Khimki with 16 points and six assists with Vitaly Fridzon adding 13. Barcelona were led by Ante Tomic, who hit 16 of his own.
“I am very happy for the victory, which is very important,” Khimki coach Rimas Kurtinaitis said.
“We played well in defence and in offense, and I am happy for my players who worked today hard, I don’t want to mark some players; we played good as a team. Today we made only six turnovers and that’s a good result. If we want to go forward we have to reduce the number of mistakes. We have good players and during 40 minutes with the concentration we may don’t make turnovers.”
Caja Laboral grabbed a big 71-70 win over Maccabi Electra in Tel Aviv as the Israeli side fell to 0-2.
After racing ahead 44-32 at the half, the Spaniards let Maccabi back into it in the third quarter as they were held to just six points, while the hosts piled on 24 points which was highlighted by a 13-2 run to set up a thrilling fourth quarter.
With eight seconds left on the clock, Fernando San Emeterio gave Vitoria a 71-70 lead which forced Maccabi coach David Blatt to call a timeout. Yogev Ohayon had a chance to win it, but his missed and Caja Laboral celebrated their fifth straight win overall in the Euroleague.
Nemanja Bjelica led Caja Laboral with 17 points while Maccabi were fronted by 18 from Ricky Hickman.
In Group E, Anadolu Efes comfortably defeated Panathinaikos 78-64 in Istanbul.
Jordan Farmar led Anadolu Efes with 13 points as both teams now have 1-1 records after week two’s round of games.
Panathinaikos were led by Michael Bramos’ 16 points, though 12 of them came in the first quarter.
Marcus Slaughter’s return to Bamberg proved to be a success as Real Madrid beat Brose Baskets 82-67.
Slaughter however had a quiet night as he register just four points as Nikola Mirotic led the Real Madrid scoring with 19 points as the Liga Endesa side go 2-0 in Group E.
Brose Baskets, who committed more turnovers (17) than assists (11) were led by Bostjan Nachbar, who netted 19.
{youtube}BaUlteKKGd0{/youtube}
