Bilbao Basket and Lokomotiv Kuban took a huge advantage for the second leg after two wins on the road by double digits
Tuesday was the day for the first two matchups of the Eurocup Semi Finals where Bilbao Basket travelled to Ukraine to confront Budivelnik Kiev while Valencia Basket received Lokomotiv Kuban in Spain.
In Kiev, the Spaniards got a totally deserved win because of 13-30 run between the second and the third quarter to surpass Budivelnik, 83-93.
Although the victory went to the road team there was one special that had a special night for the Ukrainians, Malcolm Delaney.
Delaney had a career night finishing the match with 38 points (record from any game after regular season) and 6-9 from 3 point range with 14 or 16 free throws (another record), but it still wasn’t enough.
Bilbao had in Lamont Hamilton their man guy with 26 points and 8 boards, surrounded by good performances by Kostas Vasileadis (20 points and 5 boards), Alex Mumbru (14 points and 7 assists) and 14 points by Nikos Zisis.
With this win, Bilbao will play the second game at home with a 10 point margin that could be crucial to advance for the next stage of the competition.
In Valencia, the effort for the home crowd wasn’t enough to help their team win in a key match against Lokomotiv Kuban which is going to enter the second game of the semifinals with a 10 point advantage after an 87-97 victory.
Both teams played excellent offense for most part of this match but a 2-15 run in the third quarter created a gap that the Spanish quad couldn’t comeback in the last minutes.
It was an unbelievable game by veteran Simas Jasaitis that gave him the MVP of the week after a 23 points, 8 boards and 4 steals performance.
Jasaitis had in Derrick Brown 26 points and 6 boards and Mantas Kalnietis 17 points and 4 boards his main partners to get this huge victory on the road.
On the Valencia’s side, Justin Doellman continued his great performances in Liga Endesa and in Eurocup with 28 points and 4 boards while Pau Ribas off the bench had 20.
