Joventut survives Cedevita comeback attempt, 96-91

Joventut Badalona moved into a three-way tie at the top of Group A with a 96-91 win over Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana on Wednesday night. With this victory, Joventut improved its record to 8-4, while Cedevita dropped to 2-10.
Joel Parra scored a team-high 23 points for Joventut, who had Simon Birgander add 18, Guillem Vives contribute 15 and Kyle Guy finish with 14. For Cedevita, Yogi Ferrell had a game-high 25 points, while Josh Adams scored 15. The visitors had four other players get into double figures: Edo Muric (13), Rok Radovic (12), Alen Omic (11) and Amar Alibegovic (10).
Cedevita began the game on fire, opening a 0-7 lead after three minutes of play, but Vives went 3-for-3 from beyond the arc to help Joventut get back into the game three minutes later, 12-12. Yet, Radovic and Ferrell combined for five points to reestablish the visitors' advantage, 12-17, which they managed to hold onto for the remainder of the quarter, 19-21.
Vives gave Joventut a boost early in the second as he connected for his fourth triple of the night to nudge the hosts in front, 22-21. Alibegovic immediately hit back, but then Joventut found a way to remain in control, despite comeback attempts by Cedevita. As the first half drew to a close, Henry Ellenson saw a three-pointer fall to put Joventut seven points ahead, 46-39. It seemed as though the hosts were going to go into the break with that lead intact, 48-41, but a buzzer-beating Marko Jeremic triple gave Cedevita reason to be optimistic, 48-44.
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The third quarter was a little slow to get going, but Cedevita managed to chip into the deficit and eventually flipped the script, 54-55, with 6:53 on the clock. However, that provided a response from Joventut, who regained its seven-point advantage two and a half minutes later, 64-57, before extending it thanks to a pair of made free throws by Guy, 66-57. Again, Joventut had a comfortable lead in the final seconds of the quarter, 70-63, but this time Adams scored a buzzer-beating shot from just inside the arc to reduce the gap to five points entering the last stanza.
Ferrell provided the assists for both of Jeremic and Adams's buzzer-beating shots, and he scored Cedevita's first 8 points to make the hosts sweat, 76-73. Adams and Omic kept putting points on the board after that, and it was Adams who scored a floater to make it 78-80 with 6:10 remaining. Cedevita's lead swelled to six points after a layup by Omic, 79-85, one minute later, but a 13-0 run by Joventut saw it regain control, 92-85, en route to 96-91 victory.