It wasn’t exactly the most inspiring set of Euroleague basketball games last night, with all four losing sides “held” under 60 points and nearly all blown out. (The operative verb gets quotation marks because the three crushed teams all shot under 40% overall with incredibly abysmal numbers from beyond the arc, to some extent helping the opposition onto victories.)
In any case, highlight clips are still fun. So from the ever-reliable In Case You Missed It Department, official videos from the first quartet of Euroleague Top 16 matches follow.
Efes Pilsen 60, Montepaschi Siena 58. Despite the Bo-less offense, Montepaschi gave Efes Pilsen quite a scare on its homecourt; the Turkish side couldn’t hold a seven-point lead going into the fourth quarter, even giving the Italians successive chances at the basket – almost enough to win. Kudos to Siena for adapting their game enough to play a competent game even without their offensive driver.
Power Electronics Valencia 73, Žalgiris Kaunas 59. After proclaiming that Žalgiris would surprise PE Valencia in Spain over at The Lithuanian Perspective yesterday (that “wise” title will surely evaporate any day now), BiE went and simultaneously trashed the Greens in the official EL power rankings. So at least BiE was covered either way on this one. Who’s not covered is coach Ilias Zouros, now apparently with only three more losses allowable before his dismissal under the Romanov Rules.
Real Madrid 78, Partizan Belgrade 58. Nobody’d better be sleeping on Real; these guys flustered and dominated poor Partizan in raucous Madrid – and still no Mirza Begic. Ettore Messina’s boys are seriously resembling a Final Four team right about now…
Panathinaikos 80, Lietuvos Rytas 59. Did anyone else give up on this one when Martynas Gecevicius went down? Is there really no way to convince Sarunas Jasikevicius to come home and, you know, all is forgiven…?
