David Skara’s inside presence and Umoja Gibson’s 25 points lead Cedevita to a 85-104 triumph in Lithuania
Cedevita cruises past Neptunas for comfortable road win
Game Report
3 Mins read
Regular Season
Round 14 of 18
Regular Season
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Neptunas KlaipedaNEP
85104
Cedevita Olimpija LjubljanaCOL
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Overview
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Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana claimed a comfortable road win at Neptunas Klaipeda on Tuesday night, improving to 9-5 in Group A to remain third in the standings.
Coming off last week's defeat, Cedevita played with a composed and balanced display away from home. The Slovenian side set the tone early, quickly building a double-digit lead. While Neptunas pushed back in the second quarter, Cedevita’s offensive efficiency proved decisive.
David Skara was a steady force for Cedevita, finishing with 16 points and 8 rebounds while shooting 85.7% from the paint. The Croatian center’s strong inside presence gave his team a physical edge over Neptunas.
‘‘For sure, we didn't expect to finish the game in the first quarter. We started well, we knew they were going to wake up, eventually they were gonna come back in the game. But as I said, we didn't let our aggressiveness go down and we stayed solid the whole game,’’ said Skara after the game.
Cedevita made the most of its depth, spreading the scoring across multiple players to keep the offense moving, with five players reaching double figures.
Umoja Gibson was another key contributor, hitting half of the team’s 8 three-pointers and finishing with 25 points and 4 assists, while DJ Stewart added 18, Jaka Blazic 16, and Aleksej Nikolic 12.
Cedevita’s inside scoring set the tone, with efficient ball movement creating easy opportunities in the paint. The visitors finished with 104 points, well above their 86.2 season average, and dominated the boards to take control of the game physically.
‘‘I think we started the game really focused,’’ said coach Zvezdan Mitrovic after the game. ‘‘I think it was not bad in the first quarter. After, Neptunas grabbed the game and started to play their way. But in the second half, after some problems in the third quarter, we opened our game, even in offense we started to play good… Very important game for us and we are really happy about all this.’’
Neptunas struggled to maintain its aggressiveness inside and connected on just 6 of 22 from beyond the arc. Zane Waterman led the second-quarter surge with 15 points, while Donatas Tarolis added 13, but their efforts weren’t enough to turn the game in the home side’s favor.
‘‘It was a very good start aggressively from Cedevita’s side,’’ said Coach Gediminas Petrauskas. ‘‘We did not respond to the physicality in the first 7 minutes. Then later, we kind of find the rhythm... And as soon as we kind of almost were in reach of the hand, we stopped and we got back again into our struggle offensively.’’
Next up, Cedevita will look to carry its road momentum back home against U-BT Cluj-Napoca, while Neptunas hits the road to face BAXI Manresa.
