Beşiktaş Cola Turka got big performances from Mire Chatman and Fedor Likholitov, while Allen Iverson dominated the first half on offense to help the Eagles win their first game, 94-85 over Trabzonspor, since Mr. Answer joined the squad.
Iverson’s line ended up showing 14 points and 8 assists contributed – and all but three of those points came in the first 20 minutes of play. How involved was A.I. in the Beşiktaş offense? In directly contributing to at least 27 Eagles points, the halftime score stood at 41-41.
For Trabzanspor, longtime American journeyman Alvin Snow was tasked with guarding Iverson up top to a bit greater success – and so Beşiktaş coach Burak Biyiktay starting sending the offense through his old standard, Mire Chatman. Chatman contributed 15 of his 19 points in the second half, again showing his TBL scoring domination of last season.
Likholitov was the token big-man contributor for Beşiktaş in this game with 20 points and eight rebounds, although Trabzanspor’s Vladislav Dragojlovic was noted as having ruled the baseline on offense and defense to put together a monster 18-point 12-rebound effort – lack of size hurts Beşiktaş again … BiE wonders: how can the Eagles get more than one big involved per game?
Next up: The Iverson circus travels to France to play Asvel Basket in week three of Eurocup basketball on Tuesday night. Tipoff is scheduled for 7.30pm CET (1.30pm EST).
