


In a back-and-forth battle that went down to the final second, Anadolu Efes Istanbul survived a thriller in Round 25 by edging LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne 89-90 at the Astroballe on Friday. Will Clyburn scored his team's last 4 points and poked the ball away from Nando De Colo's hands on the game's final possession. Efes improved to 12-12 in the standings while ASVEL dropped to 8-17 with its fourth consecutive defeat.
Clyburn led the winners with 20 points. Shane Larkin added 16. Elijah Bryant had 14 and 10 rebounds for his first career double-double in his 121st game in the competition. Rodrigue Beaubois scored 12 points for Efes. Nando De Colo led ASVEL with 20 points while Youssoupha Fall added 15.
Larkin followed a triple with a jumper to give Efes an early 4-7 lead. De Colo and David Lighty fueled a 6-0 run that put ASVEL ahead, 10-7. Beaubois stepped up for Efes, hitting 3 consecutive mid-range jumpers and a bomb from downtown for a 14-16 visitors' lead. Tibor Pleiss dunked twice to keep Efes ahead, 18-23, after 10 minutes. Beaubois and Pleiss kept pacing the guests and Bryant Dunston's tip-in made ASVEL call timeout at 23-31. Yves Pons and De Colo combined for 7 points in a 10-0 run that let ASVEL regain a 33-31 lead. De Colo kept pacing ASVEL, getting help from Fall and Retin Obasohan to boost the hosts' edge to 49-45 at halftime.
Efes found a new go-to guy in Amath M'Baye, who buried a couple of three-pointers and a jumper to help his team re-take a 56-59 lead. Alex Tyus followed a three-point play with a layup to give ASVEL a 61-59 edge. Ante Zizic and Clyburn combined for 10 points in a 0-13 run that Larkin capped with his fourth three-pointers for a double-digit Efes lead, 61-72, after 30 minutes. Yves Pons and Obasohan each struck from downtown and Fall scored down low to bring ASVEL within 73-77. De Colo led a 9-0 run highlighted by Obasohan's acrobatic three-point play for an 82-82 tie. Dee Bost buried a three-pointer to give ASVEL an 89-86 lead but Clyburn hit 4 of 4 free throws in the final 40.8 seconds, and got the final defensive stop of the game, too.