Rodrigue Beaubois was outstanding in the first half, then Shane Larkin sealed the win down the stretch
Beaubois, then Larkin led Efes's road win at Bayern
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Regular Season
Round 29 of 34
Group Regular Season
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Anadolu Efes Istanbul confirmed its good form with a 92-97 road win over FC Bayern Munich. Efes became just the third team to win at SAP Garden in the current Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season, after Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens and Virtus Segafredo Bologna. Efes's backcourt stars stepped up to lead their team to its third consecutive victory.
Rodrigue Beaubois arguably had one of the most perfect first quarters in competition history, getting 16 points on no missed shots, fouls committed or turnovers. He just needed six shots, hitting his two attempts inside the arc and going 4 of 4 from downtown. Beaubois added a big block on Carsen Edwards and found Vincent Poirier for an alley-oop dunk. He was close to beat Efes's scoring record in a first quarter, with Will Clyburn having had 17 first-quarter points against Virtus in last season's play-in.
Beaubois eventually started to miss shots but still reached 21 points with over 3 minutes left before halftime. He went on to score two more points in the next 23 minutes. Until Beaubois cooled off, Larkin had been limited to just two points. Of course, Larkin is no ordinary player for Bayern fans. Back in 2019, he set the EuroLeague's all-time scoring mark against Bayern, scoring 49 points. In his previous game against Bayern, Larkin had 28 points and a PIR of 33, leading Efes to a 109-86 victory.
Larkin scored 23 points in as many minutes, stepping up in crunch time to make the difference by netting 12 points in the final 6 minutes. With the game tied at 80-80, Larkin used his footwork to generate space and bank in a shot. He added a pair of free throws and a wild three-point play for an 88-90 lead. In the final minute, Larkin still had time to hit a crucial three-pointer and a pair of free throws. After the final buzzer, Larkin had 25 points on 4 of 6 two-pointers, 4-of-8 three-pointers and 5-of-5 free throws, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals, 5 fouls drawn and a PIR of 33.
After the game, Larkin and Beaubois talked about the importance of this week, and how locked in Efes is right now.
"It was exciting. At the end of the day, this is a game, and you love to compete and to be in these moments, so to be able to be out there in one of these most competitive games down the stretch, with two teams that are fighting for the playoffs... it was an incredible atmosphere, Larkin said. “I am just really happy that my team was able to stick together, fight all the runs and come out on top.
"We are basically in playoff mode right now. We know that we have to pretty much win every single game to consider ourselves a team that can get into the playoffs. So we are approaching every single game with the same mentality, and we know it's win or lose. And at the end of the day, we got to win more than we lose. And today we went out there and completed the job."
"This is a big one,” Beaubois added. “Obviously, winning here is very difficult, we know that, but we were able to win this game and also show that we are a real team. Everybody contributed, so this one feels extremely good.
"We gave everything on the floor, everybody that stepped on the floor. That's the way we need to play if we want to achieve what we are trying to achieve, for sure."
After its last three wins, Efes is 15-14 and two wins away from fourth-placed AS Monaco, which has a 17-12 record. It has three more home games against Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz, Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv and Zalgiris Kaunas, and two visits to Serbia to go against Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade and Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade.