One of the talking points in this week’s Round-9 games was Real Madrid captain Felipe Reyes crossing the 2500-point barrier in his 18-year old basketball career. Reyes achieved this feat in style as the lead-scorer in his team’s 89-75 win against Unics Kazan at Madrid. This was Real Madrid’s third consecutive win in the Turkish Airlines Euro-league competition. Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv and Galatasaray Odeabank Istanbul were the two other teams that scored their third straight wins. While Maccabi Tel aviv downed Olympiacos Piraeus, Galatasaray outplayed the hapless FC Barcelona Lassa. Last year’s runners-up Fenerbahce Istanbul earned a valuable road win over EA7 Emporio Armani Milan to finish the week at 6-3 behind Real Madrid. Defending champion CSKA Moscow held on to the top spot at 8-1 with a thumping win over Baskonia Vitoria Gasteiz in Moscow. This was also CSKA’s 16th consecutive home win in Euro-League competition.
On Thursday, Real Madrid’s iconic captain Felipe Reyes went past Mike Batiste’s 2496 and Dimitris Diamantidis’ 2495 points and crossed the crucial 2500-point barrier in his spectacular career in Euro-League basketball. With 2508 points at the end of Real Madrid’s 89-75 Round-9 win over Unics Kazan, Reyes is still way short of FC Barcelona star Juan Carlos Navarro, who tops the list with a whopping 3922 points. Next on the list is Olympiacos’ Vassilis Spanoulis with 3123 points. The other two players ahead of Reyes are Maccabi Tel Aviv’s Marcus Brown with 2739 and Galatasaray’s Jaka Lakovic at 2524. Reyes was the top scorer on Thursday with 16 points in his team’s win at Madrid. Another Real Madrid star Sergio Llull added 14 with 7 assists. The victory took Real Madrid to 7-2 in the standings.
Fenerbahce Istanbul defended very well to elicit an important 79-70 victory on road against EA7 Emporio Armani Milan. Five players reached the double-digit score for Fenerbahce with Kostas Sloukas leading them with 18 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists. The victory improved Fenerbahce’s standings to 6-3 while Milan dropped to 4-5. In Istanbul, Anadolu Efes Istanbul notched up their third consecutive home win by defeating Crvena Zvezda MTS Belgrade 100-79. Now both teams have a 4-5 record in the standings. For Efes, Derrick Brown was the lead scorer with 20 points, 9 rebounds and 3 blocks while Bryce Cotton added 19 and Thomas Heurtel 17 with 7 assists.
Another impressive road win was recorded by Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv, when they defeated the home side Olympiacos Piraeus 80-73. This was Maccabi’s third straight win and they improved to 5-4. DJ Seeley was the top scorer with 19 points that included 5 of 8 three-pointers. Olympiacos Piraeus are also 5-4 after suffering their second home defeat. Zalgiris Kaunas registered their third victory of the current season by defeating Brose Bamberg 86-72 at home. With that, the Lithuanian Club’s tally has become 3-6, while Brose dropped to 2-7. For Zalgiris, Paulius Jankunas scored 23 points with 9 rebounds and Kevin Pangos added another 19 points and 6 assists.
Galatasaray Odeabank Istanbul scored their third successive home win by defeating FC Barcelona Lassa 78-64. Blake Schilb led Galatasaray with 18 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists while Sinan Guler added another 18 to equal his career-high score. CSKA Moscow continued their unbeaten run with a 112-84 win over Baskonia Vitoria Gasteiz at Moscow. It was also CSKA’s 16th consecutive Euro-League win on the home turf. CSKA lead the standings with 8-1 while Baskonia slipped to 5-4. After Baskonia took a double-digit lead in the first quarter, CSKA rallied with 95 points in the next three quarters to dominate the match. CSKA’s Milos Teodosic scored a career best 34 points and reached his 1000th assist in Euro-League.
Panathinaikos Athens scored an 86-80 home victory against Darussafaka Dogus Istanbul. Now both teams have the same standing of 5-4 in the competition. After Panathinaikos led by 14 points in second quarter, Darussafaka’s Will Clyburn engineered a rally to give his team a 77-76 lead in the second half. However Panathinaikos prevailed later in the game as Ioannis Bourousis, Nick Calathes and Chris Singleton came with precious baskets in the third and fourth quarters. Bourousis top-scored with 18 points, including a put-back with less than 12 seconds remaining and 2 free throws in dying seconds that sealed the victory for the home side. Darussafaka’s Clyburn scored 26 points with 9 rebounds.
