Joventut rolls past Metropolitans, 86-63
Pau Ribas paced four Joventut scorers in double figures with 17 points, while Vladimir Brodziansky scored 13 points, Brandon Paul had 11, Joel Parra chipped in 10 and Ante Tomic tallied 8 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists in fewer than 18 minutes. Vince Hunter was Metropolitans’ leading scorer with 19 points, Will Cummings added 17 points and Miralem Halilovic scored 10. But that was not enough as the French side dropped its second straight game to fall to 3-4.
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Halilovic hit a layup to start the game for the visitors and then the Cummings show started. He scored his first 4 points while Tomic scored 6 and Joventut was up 8-6. Ribas drained 2 three-pointers to give the hosts a 16-12 lead. Cummings answered with a three-point play to give him 11 points and 4 straight points from Hunter knotted the game at 19-19. Joventut finished the quarter strong though with Brodziansky scoring twice for a 25-20 advantage after 10 minutes.
Paul drained a three-pointer to start the second quarter for Joventut and Brodziansky’s hook shot pushed the advantage to double figures for the first time at 32-22. After Andres Feliz extended the gap to 12, Hunter responded with 4 straight points at the other end. But the Joventut express continued with a Ribas three-pointer and 4 Parra points in a 13-3 finish to the first half and a 49-31 cushion at the break.
Paul started the second half with a triple and the lead grew to 54-31. Metropolitans began to finally score a bit more consistently with Keith Hornsby and Hunter combining for 10 points to pull within 60-45. But Joventut was still able to score and Brodziansky had 4 points as the lead reached 68-49 after 30 minutes.
Metropolitans tried to work hard on defense to start the fourth quarter with Halilovic slightly cutting the gap to 72-55. Joventut just kept rolling though, thanks also to three-pointers from Brodziansky, Pep Busquets and Derek Willis as the lead got to 83-57 with under 4 minutes to play. And the visitors did not get closer than 23 points the rest of the way.