EA7 Milano made sure took care of home court at the second time of asking by beating Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv 91-77 in Milan to even their Euroleague quarter-finals at 1-1.
Curtis Jerrells led Milano with 17 points as he led six players in double figures in a deserved win where the mindset was not to lose another double-digit lead like the hosts did in game one.
Milano made no mistakes this time around.
“I was sure that this team would react in the right way, and we did,” Jerrells said. “A great game, great intensity, teamwork and all our energy on the court. Now we’ll go to Tel Aviv with all our confidence back, I trust we can do it.”
Alex Tyus led Maccabi with 16 points as they lost Sofoklis Schortsantis in the first quarter to injury.
While the Milan-Maccabi series has been extended, CSKA Moscow are one win away from an 11th Final Four in 12 years after beating Panathinaikos 77-51 to go 2-0 up in their series.
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Sonny Weems led CSKA with 23 points as the Russian champions held their Greek counterparts to just six points in the second quarter to establish a double digit lead and never look back.
Roko Leni-Ukic led Panathinaikos with 15 points as they now head to the OAKA looking to get two wins to force a game five.
“Obviously we played a good game,” CSKA coach Ettore Messina said. “First of all because we were consistent on defence, the players were ready to sacrifice defensively. We did everything possible to make it difficult for Panathinaikos to score. Besides we were quite patient. Usually when you’re up by 10-12 points and you cannot raise the margin to 20, you have a kind of scare and you rush. But we showed mental toughness, we were patient, we defended our lead, made another push in the last quarter and closed the game.”
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