Last season's EuroLeague champion won at Efes's home for the fourth season in succession
Reinforcements help Fenerbahce to local derby victory
Отчеты о матчах
3 Минутное чтение
Regular Season
Round 6 of 38
Regular Season
Anadolu Efes IstanbulEFS
6979
Fenerbahce Beko IstanbulFBB
Overview
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Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul ground its way to a tough, defensively-earned 69-79 victory over local rival Anadolu Efes Istanbul on Friday night, and a batch of recent reinforcements played their part.
A couple of the Turkish team’s summer signings were unable to really make their presence felt in the opening weeks of the season, with Talen Horton-Tucker and Armando Bacot playing just the first three and two games respectively before being sidelined by injury.
On Friday night they were back in action, though, and both showed signs of gradually becoming key pieces for the reigning champs.
Horton-Tucker spent 18 minutes on the floor, and although his stats line was less than impressive – 5 points on 2-of-7 field-goal shooting with 3 turnovers – his presence in the starting five shows that coach Sarunas Jasikevicius trusts the former Chicago Bull to handle pressure moments over the coming months.
Bacot was more impactful, posting 9 points on 3-of-4 shooting from the field plus all 3 of his free-throw attempts, also adding 4 rebounds as the 25-year-old big man spent 11 minutes in the game during a time when Fener’s defense was overcoming a leaky start to gradually take control.
Horton-Tucker and Bacot were both left on the bench during the decisive fourth quarter, but Jasikevicius later acknowledged there was nothing unusual in his decision to finish the game with longer-serving players like Devon Hall, Wade Baldwin, Bonzie Colson and Khem Birch.
“When you come to difficult situations like this, all coaches will trust the guys that have been there for him, and in our case they won for him,” the coach said. “This is a process – the season is just starting. We have very good newcomers but like everything it takes time.
“At this part of the season we’re trying to integrate guys and it’s a very difficult process. So we must be very happy with the way [this win] was achieved.”
A bigger statistical contribution was provided by another player who feels like a new signing for Fenerbahce: shooting star Scottie Wilbekin, who missed nearly the entirety of last season after suffering a serious knee injury in the opening minutes of the first game.
The severity of Wilbekin’s injury meant that he still wasn’t able to return to action at the beginning of this campaign, before finally getting back on the floor in Round 4 in a home defeat to Dubai Basketball.
Friday’s outing was the longest he has spent on the floor since returning, with more than 20 minutes of game time, and Wilbekin showed he has lost none of his trademark long-range shooting ability by draining 4 three-pointers on just 5 attempts, including a couple of key strikes in the fourth quarter.
Coach Jasikevicius is clearly delighted to have such a prolific scorer back on the court, saying: “Scottie is one of those guys that you can trust.
“You can put him on the court, he understands the system and everything that we want. He needs to get back into the rhythm, obviously missing one year is not easy. But he’s trying, he’s doing everything we ask of him, and he’s an amazing professional.”
Wilbekin is the fourth-most prolific three-point shooter in EuroLeague history, with 617 strikes from beyond the arc trailing only Mike James (620), Juan Carlos Navarro (623) and Sergio Llull (690). He’s sure to overtake Navarro soon before then going head to head with James to overtake Llull – whose minutes are limited these days – before too long.
And at his current rate, it would be unwise to bet against Wilbekin becoming the competition’s three-point king sometime in the early spring.
