The Turkish side dominated throughout to celebrate a big win with arguably its best performance of the season
Besiktas runs riot to sink Buducnost and reach the postseason
Informes de partidos
3 Min lectura
Regular Season
Round 15 of 18
Regular Season
group b
Besiktas GAIN IstanbulBJK
9674
Buducnost VOLI PodgoricaBUD
group b
Overview
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Besiktas GAIN Istanbul reached the BKT EuroCup postseason with three games to spare and will now be vying for a top-two finish and with it a bye into the quarterfinals after romping to a 96-74 home rout of Buducnost Podgorica, which allowed the Turkish side to claim the top spot in Group B.
Besiktas, which is level with Cosea JL Bourg-en-Bresse on identical 11-4 records with three games to go in the regular season, holds the head-to-head tiebreak advantage over the French side. Buducnost slipped from third to fifth at 9-6 and still has some work to do in order to secure a berth in the business end of the competition.
The home team produced a magnificent collective effort garnished by a club record 47 boards and an impressive 24 assists, sharing the ball selflessly as six home scorers finished in double digits. Besiktas dominated on the back of aggressive half-court pressure, which in turn set the path for a flurry of transition baskets in a rampant first quarter, when the hosts served up a blistering 20-0 run.
An early 5-6 deficit thus became a whopping 25-6 lead and although Buducnost worked hard to get back into the game, the writing was on the wall for the Montenegrin side as it never recovered from the first-quarter beating.
Some incisive play by Yogi Ferrell, the game’s top scorer with 18 points, hauled Buducnost back to 49-36 by halftime, but that was as good as it got for the visitors all night after Besiktas put its foot on the gas again in the third quarter. The home players owned the paint at both ends while their backcourt shot the lights out from all over, engineering a 71-44 lead amid wild cheers from the passionate home fans who created a cracking atmosphere.
Anthony Brown tallied 11 points and 6 boards, while Matt Thomas enjoyed a fine home debut for Besiktas as he racked up 12 points and 6 rebounds, shooting 3-of-6 from deep. Vitto Brown sank 14 points for the winners while the homegrown duo of Yigit Arslan and Berk Ugurlu combined for 22. Finally, big man Ismael Kamagate chipped in with 12 and 5, including some spectacular dunks, which galvanized the home side throughout.
“I am proud of our team, our effort and our aggressiveness,” Anthony Brown said in his postgame comments. “Everybody played well defensively and offensively, everything was great today. I just tried to bring energy today as we lost to them in Podgorica and we just wanted to get that win today.”
The home team’s head coach Dusan Alimpijevic praised his men, but also struck a note of caution that Besiktas should take nothing for granted in a neck-to-neck race with Bourg for the group’s top spot.
“Nothing is over. Bourg has the same number of wins, so there are some important games coming up for us,” said Alimpijevic. “We are going in the right direction though, obviously we played a good game.”
“We controlled the pace, we knew what we wanted and how to achieve it,” he added, before giving due credit to Thomas for working hard to carve out open shots for himself. “He created those shots himself as he’s a really good player and we also have good shooters in Anthony Brown and Yigit Arslan.”
Alimpijevic’s counterpart Andrej Zakelj had little to cheer about after a performance devoid of fight and energy.
“Congrats to the home team, they were much tougher and better in every department,” Zakelj said. “We were not on the level we should have been for this kind of game and Besiktas deserved to win. We didn’t respond to their physicality and it’s hard to play against a team which gets 16 offensive rebounds on you. There is no excuse.”
