For fans of offensive basketball – and there were more than 15,000 of them at Sinan Erdem Arena on Tuesday – there was even more to Anadolu Efes Istanbul's 93-90 comeback win over visiting Real Madrid than meets the eye.
Telling numbers: Efes, Real showed stellar offensive basketball
Both teams exceeded practically all shooting norms of the season so far. And by norms we don't mean the Turkish Airline EuroLeague average, but rather the percentages of the best-peforming teams this season.
The best three-point shooting team coming into Round 31, FC Barcelona, was making 40.7% from downtown this season. In this game, Efes hit 44.0% (11 for 25) and Real 42.3% (11 for 26).
The best team at two-pointers, Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul, was making 57.6% for the season. Efes shot 62.5% inside the arc and Real 57.1% on Tuesday.
And even though Efes leads all teams at the free-throw line, with 83.3%, it's 20-for-20 display on Tuesday was the best in the EuroLeague this season and the club's highest total ever without a miss. Only 11 times in thousands of EuroLeague games this century have any teams shot more than 20 perfect free throws in a game. And Real went 9 for 9 at the line, too.
Related Videos
The fact that both teams were putting up great percentages owed to another great statistic they shared. Efes had just 7 turnovers while scoring 93 points and Real even fewer, 5, on its way to 90. Only nine previous times in EuroLeague history has any game seen fewer turnovers than their 12 combined on Tuesday.
In a near-perfect game for both teams, the player who had the fewest mistakes was Bryant Dunston of Efes, who made 2 of 2 two-point shots, 4 of 4 free throws and committed 0 turnovers.