The visitors gave up a 20-point difference and Cedevita had the ball to win, but turned it over on the last possession
Neptunas hangs on by a thread against Cedevita in roller-coaster battle
Game Report
3 Mins read
Regular Season
Round 5 of 18
Regular Season
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Cedevita Olimpija LjubljanaCOL
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Neptunas KlaipedaNEP
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“In the end we had a chance to win after all this craziness during the game,” lamented Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana head coach Zvezdan Mitrovic after his team's 91-94 defeat to Neptunas Klaipeda. “But I think tonight's game was finished in the first quarter, when we opened the game super soft and with no defense, allowing them to score 34 points [in the first quarter].”
Mitrovic was right. His team had the chance to complete a historic comeback after trailing by 20 points in the first quarter (11-31), and later by 10 (76-86) midway through the final quarter.
A steal by DJ Stewart, with the score at 91-93 and just 2 seconds left on the clock, gave Cedevita one last opportunity to win the game. But a misunderstanding between him and Umoja Gibson ended up in a turnover that confirmed Neptunas’s victory.
“It was a rollercoaster game. We started very well. Then, we kind of struggled against the switching defense of Cedevita,” acknowledged Neptunas head coach Gediminas Petrauskas.
The Lithuanians had an impressive first quarter, with Rihards Lomasz and James Karnik pushing Neptunas to a 16-34 advantage at the end of the first quarter. However, Cedevita didn't surrender.
Despite facing the best rebounding team in the competition, Cedevita made up for its problems under the boards – the Slovenians ranked last in rebounding coming to this game – and matched Neptunas’s force inside. Also, a couple of threes by Joseph Girard and a scoring spurt by David Skara helped the home team reach halftime still in the game (42-49).
Step by step Cedevita got closer, and the rally was finally completed when Thomas Kennedy converted a bucket to make it 71-70 and reset the game with still 8 minutes to play.
The joy didn’t last for long for the home side, though, as Arnas Velicka and Lomasz showed up from deep to cool it down immediately. The Latvian shooter came up big soon after when he chained together a three-point play and a trey to restore a double-digit edge, 76-86, with 4 minutes to go.
“I think the key moment was the beginning of the third quarter. We kind of started the same way we started the first quarter: with good intensity, with the idea of what we want to play,” said Petrauskas, who praised his players’ poise when Cedevita came back.
“As a coach, you are always proud after the wins. But at the same time, how we played the end of the game it was something unspeakable. We must control the ball better in these circumstances, but obviously we are happy to get the [team's] first away win in the EuroCup”.
It’s easy to understand the bittersweet feeling of Petrauskas when reviewing the last possessions of his team. After giving up 14 points in the previous game against Hamburg and wasting a 20-point lead early in the game, Neptunas committed several turnovers and mistakes in crunch time that allowed Cedevita to come within 91-93 with 10 seconds left, before then forcing a turnover on the following inbound pass.
Luckily for Neptunas, it didn’t go further.
“For me, we didn't deserve to win tonight because Neptunas played better,” Mitrovic admitted. “They scored all these tough points in clutch time. I don't know how many threes in the last seconds, contested shots, they made.”
Neptunas, now riding a two-game winning streak, can start to look upward, while Cedevita will be eager to address its two-game losing skid as soon as possible.
