Barcelona celebrated their 300th game in the Euroleague with an 89-84 victory in overtime against Anadolu Efes in Istanbul to go 8-0 in Group E.
Another career night of 25 points and 15 rebounds from Ante Tomic led Barca to the win but they had to force overtime due to a tip-in from Joey Dorsey off a purposely missed free throw from Brad Oleson. The visitors though got the upper hand in the extra period, scoring the first five points to take the lead for good as Anadolu Efes struggled to score in the opening possessions.
“We were especially excellent in the first quarter,” said Barcelona coach Xavi Pascual. “We were really close to crushing Efes. But things started to change with the start of the second quarter. But we played really smart in the last couple of minutes of regular time and we put our hearts on the court and managed to win the game.”
Juan Carlos Navarro himself had a career stat of 11 assists to go with his 17 points.
The Turks drop to 2-6 with this loss. Zoran Planinic and Kostas Vasileiadis both led Anadolu Efes with 14 points.
Elsewhere in Group E, a dominating first half display from Unicaja Malaga earned them an 81-71 win at Laboral Kutxa.
Leading 26-16 after one, Malaga went on to hold Vitoria to just 8 points in the second quarter as they led 47-24 at the half.
Ryan Toolson led a balanced scoring attack for the winners with 14 points as they improve to 4-4, while Andres Nocioni hit a game-high 18 for Laboral as they fall to 1-7. Lamar Odom made his debut for Laboral, but went scoreless in just six minutes on the court.
EA7 Milano survived a late 12-2 burst to beat Panathiniakos 77-75 in Italy to record their sixth straight home win.
Milano continue their surprising run in the Top 16 as they shoot to second spot at 5-3. Crucially though, Panathinaikos, who go to 4-4 hold the head-to-head advantage thanks to their 16-point win in Athens earlier in the group.
“Tonight you saw the best and worst of my job,” Milano coach Luca Banchi explained. “Twenty perfect minutes, in which everybody did their work, we alternated many players on the court, improving our quality. We played the best 20 minutes, so far, this season. But this is a crazy job, especially when the things start to become complicated.
“We made many mistakes in the last quarter, and I think we have to improve a lot our percentage from the foul line. We have to avoid the mistakes we made at the end if we want to compete at a high level.”
Keith Langford led the Italians with 18 points. James Gist responded with 21 for the Greens.
Group F’s lone game saw Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv coast to a 97-81 home win over Galatasaray.
Guy Pnini led the Israeli side with 17 points as five Maccabi players hit double figures for scoring.
Malik Hairston went for 18 points for the visitors.
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