After the halftime break, Dusko Ivanovic’s men outscored Alex Mumbru’s squad 32-54.
Baskonia flipped the script at La Fonteta in a game of two halves
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Regular Season
Round 11 of 34
Group Regular Season
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Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz showed two sides of itself in the same game on Friday night. After a disappointing first half on the road at Valencia Basket, Baskonia came out and dominated the second en route to an 84-98 road victory in Round 11 of the 2023-24 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season.
Dusko Ivanovic’s side gave up 52 first-half points to the lowest-scoring team in the EuroLeague, with Valencia having come into this game averaging just 72.9 points. However, following the halftime interval, Baskonia turned up its aggressiveness and allowed just 32 points after the break. This victory secured its fifth win in six games and saw it improve to a 6-5 record.
“This was two games in one game for my team. The first 20 minutes was one team with a different style of playing offense and defense. In the second half we definitely had more aggressiveness, played good defense, patience on offense,” commented Coach Ivanovic, who has guided the team to a 5-1 record since taking over mid-season.
Baskonia’s offense flipped the switch
At the same time, Valencia was the second-best defense in the EuroLeague, giving up just 74.8 points per game. But Baskonia blew by that with a season-high 98 points, surpassing the 94 points it scored in a home win over FC Barcelona in Round 8.
“We took care of business in the second half. In the first half they got off to a great start. They fed off their fans’ energy. They wreaked havoc on the defensive end, caused us into some turnovers,” said Markus Howard, who paced Baskonia with 24 points including 6 three-pointers.
“In the second half we corrected some errors, played the right way, executed and made the right plays when it counted.”
Baskonia improved its percentages
Baskonia had been struggling shooting the ball coming into the game, hitting just 51.2% on two-pointers and 34.6% from long range, ranking 15th and 14th, respectively.
But that was drastically better against Valencia as Ivanovic’s team made 67.6% on two-pointers and 40.7% on three-pointers. The latter number was all the more impressive considering Valencia had been holding its opponents to a second-best 30.9% on three-pointers.