Besiktas's rigid defense ended the defending champion's reign
Besiktas Emlakjet Istanbul pulled off a stunning upset by defeating Dreamland Gran Canaria 78-80 on Wednesday night, with the Turkish side’s defense playing a key role in their qualification for the BKT EuroCup Quarterfinals. Besiktas may have boasted the fifth-stingiest defense in the regular season with an average 80.4 points conceded, but it was called to face off against the fourth-best offense in the competition with 88.9 points scored per game.
The Spanish side hit the ground running in the first quarter and outscored Besiktas 22-14, but when everything indicated that Gran Canaria would dictate the tempo at home, the Turkish side imposed its game on the hosts. Head coach Dusan Alimpijevic saw his team turn the clash into a physical affair, with his team keeping the hosts to just 3 points in the first 5 minutes of the second quarter, where Gran Canaria scored just one field goal.
“We were very physical tonight, but Gran Canaria is a team that has players in positions 3, 4 and 5 who are huge with their wingspan and size,” Alimpijevic told the post-game press conference. “If you don’t put the physicality, you can be 20 or 30 points down in a few moments, something that we saw in their last games.”
Besiktas forced a team that committed a league seventh-least 13.6 turnovers per game in the regular season to 10 errors in the first half alone. In fact, Gran Canaria ended the duel with a season-high 21 turnovers, which is tied for fifth-most of all time by the Spanish side in EuroCup.
“It was the game we expected,” Gran Canaria Jaka Lakovic said in the press conference. “It was a tough game, on the limit of a foul. The rhythm was slow with a lot of fouls and with a low score at the end. And I think that this was more in Besiktas’s favor.”
Game Videos
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Ngouama with the chasedown block! Magic Moment of the Night
This was just the fourth time that a team has kept Gran Canaria to less than 80 points, with Besiktas proving that its defense can win crucial games. Back in December, after Besiktas secured a 72-59 victory over Wolves Vilnius, Alimpijevic hailed his team’s defensive effort and made a bold prediction. “When we play like this, I’m really not afraid of anyone,” he stressed. “I think that my team has a big potential, especially defensively, to play games like this. At the end of the day, I think that this will be the most important thing when important times come.”
An important duel came and Besiktas’s defense stepped up again. Onto the next challenge now, as Besiktas will travel to Lithuania where it will face Hapoel Shlomo Tel Aviv, the league’s second-best offense (96.1 ppg.), at the Avia Solutions Group Arena in Vilnius next week.