Bouteille leads Turk Telekom to 84-89 victory in London

Turk Telekom Ankara survived a tough test in Group B by downing London Lions 84-89 at Copperbox Arena in the British capital on Wednesday. Turk Telekom improved to 12-5 and remained in the race to finish second in Group B. London dropped to 7-10 and is locked into seventh place already, set to face either Prometey Slobozhanske or Joventut Badalona in the EuroCup Eighthfinals.
Axel Bouteille paced the winners with 21 points and 7 rebounds. Tyrique Jones added 16 points and 9 rebounds, Micheal Eric scored 13 points and Erkan Yilmaz 11 for Turk Telekom. Sam Dekker led London with 25 points, but left the game with an ankle injury in the final seconds. Miye Oni added 21 points, Tomislav Zubcic had 14 and Luke Nelson got 11 for London, in what was likely its final EuroCup home game of the 2022-23 season.
Yilmaz and Bouteille stepped up early to give Turk Telekom a 7-10 lead. Yilmaz struck from downtown and Eric followed back-to-back jump hooks with a put-back layup to boost the lead to 12-19. Nate Sestina hit a triple and Tony Taylor added a jumper to make it a double-digit game, 14-24, late in the first quarter.
Nelson struck twice from beyond the arc and got help from Vojtech Hruban and Dekker to get London within 26-28. Jerian Grant and Bouteille rescued Turk Telekom and Jones's close basket gave his team a 30-36 lead. Yilmaz followed a put-back dunk with a layup and then Eric scored again for a 38-44 Turk Telekom lead at halftime.
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Zubcic struck twice from downtown, added a jump hook and fed Oni for a corner triple that completed London's comeback, 49-48. Jones stopped the show with a huge alley-oop dunk-and-foul that Dekker matched with a triple. Grant and Eric each scored around the basket. Bouteille downed two bombs from beyond the arc and added a layup to boost his team's lead to 62-70 after 30 minutes.
Bouteille fired in his third triple early in the fourth quarter and soon added a floater that restored a double-digit Turk Telekom lead, 66-76, with 6 minutes left. The hosts were not done, however, as Dekker and Oni got London within 79-81 with over 2 minutes left. Bouteille sank a mid-range jumper, Jones added a fastbreak slam and Grant sealed the outcome from the foul line.