Anadolu Efes Istanbul, the back-to-back reigning Turkish Airlines EuroLeague champion, opened its title defense with a hard-fought 72-59 win over Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade at Sinan Erdem Dome on Friday night. Efes led for the majority of the night, but it only managed to open up a double-digit margin in the fourth quarter as it went on to register its first opening-round win in four years.
Efes starts title defense with win over Zvezda
Will Clyburn led the way for Efes, scoring 11 of his game-high 19 points in the first half, while Vasilije Micic had 16 points and 6 assists. Rodrigue Beaubois recorded 10 points in a victory, too. For Zvezda, which was without Nemanja Nedovic and Ognjen Dobric, it was Ben Bentil who was the top scorer with 13 points.
Zvezda had the better start to the game, as Efes needed more than 4 minutes to score its first basket. Despite a triple apiece from Jaylen Adams and Branko Lazic, Efes caught up quickly thanks to a burst of offense from Clyburn. Efes went into the break with a narrow 35-34 lead, but with Micic leading the way, it slowly started to pull away in the third quarter. Zvezda got to within four points in the fourth, but a triple from Micic and a pair of layups from Clyburn saw Efes open up a double-digit lead, which it held on to until the final buzzer.