Zvezda smothers Baskonia for crucial 74-63 win

Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade rose to the occasion and fended off possible elimination this week by putting the breaks on the top offense in the EuroLeague for a 74-63 home win over Cazoo Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz. Down by 12 after 13 minutes, Zvezda dominated the rest of the game defensively, holding Baskonia to just 28 points in those final 27 minutes. Zvezda's record goes up to 13-17 while Baskonia drops to 15-15 and could fall out of the playoff zone as soon as tonight.
Nemanja Nedovic led the winners with 20 points. Ben Bentil added 12, Ognjen Doric 11 and Hassan Marin 10. But the real difference was the 19 turnovers forced by Zvezda's defense on Baskonia, which got 15 points from Darius Thompson and 10 from Rokas Giedraitis. Baskonia's road record fell to 4-11 with its second-lowest scoring output of the season, almost 25 points below its league-leading 86.3 per game coming into Thursday.
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Baskonia made scoring look easy, though, as it started 0-7 on Thompson's second-chance triple and Maik Kotsar's inside baskets. The lead widened to 16-22 as Giedraitis added 4 points on the way to the visitors holding a 21-26 advantage after 10 minutes. The beat went on as a string of Baskonia players off the bench kept adding to the difference until it hit a high of 23-35 early in the second quarter on basket by Vanja Marinkovic. Then, it was like a switch flipped as Luca Vildoza and Facundo Campazzo started making steals and Bentil a block to ignite a Zvezda comeback with an 11-0 run to get within take a 39-38 halftime lead on Dobric's putback on the buzzer. Baskonia was held without a point for a full 7 minutes after having had that 12-point lead.
Dobric and Luka Mitrovic kept lifting Zvezda's advantage to 47-40 early in the third quarter as both teams went completely cold from outside until Nedovic broked the spell to make it a double-digit difference, 53-43. That spelled a 22-point turnaround in the span of 15 minutes. His next triple gave Zvezda its biggest lead yet, 62-51, after 30 minutes. Thompson took it upon himself to make 4 layups early in the fourth quarter, but it only got Baskonia as close as 65-57, and then Nedovic struck again from downtown to end the threat at 69-61. Mitrovic soon scored to restore the double-digit lead and Zvezda's defense took the air out of the ball the rest of the way to win handily.