When it got serious in the second half, Maccabi Tel Aviv comfortably defeated Villeurbanne 85-67 in Lyon for Game 30 of the EuroLeague and, with a 17-13 record, temporarily moved up to sixth place, tied with Partizan, who host Thursday Olympiakos in Belgrade, leaving the French champions firmly in last place with an 8-22 record.
The “people’s team” struggled in the first half, but in the third period it reached +9 and, with a run in the fourth, it reached +15 and +20 until the final result.
The leaders of the Israelis were Baldwin with 23, Brown with 18 and Colson with 16 points. For the LNB champions, De Colo stood out with 13 and Noa with 12 points.
The match
Starring Baldwin, Colson, Maccabi went 8-3 early in the match. Nimbo brought it 6-2 and the correct choices of Odet Katas’ players inside the racket kept them at +4 to +6 in this period. De Colo took his “gun” and reduced to -3. The French international guard assisted in a 7-0 run for the +2 French champions. With a new 4-0 run, Villerban made it 20-16, Maccabi responded with their own 4-0 and the first quarter ended at 22-22.
A 6-0 run by Maccabi at the beginning of the second period made it 24-28 for the “people’s team” and the Israeli regionals maintained +1 to +2, despite the pressure of the home team with long shots. A personal 5-0 run by Brown got Maccabi to within 32-37, but a 4-0 run by Villeurbanne cut it to -1, with the margin going up and down from +1 to +3 at that point in shooting accuracy and the correct choices of both inside the racket, so the half ended 43-46. The French had 10/11 shots and 17 rebounds and the Israelis 11/14 shots and 15 rebounds.
Brown and Baldwin maintained +2 to +4 for Maccabi at the beginning of the third period and the three-pointer of the former Olympiakos guard made it 50-57. The long shots of the Israelis maintained +5 to +7, Brown brought +9, despite the efforts of Matthews, and the third quarter ended at 59-68.
With Colson as the star, Maccabi went on a 6-0 run at the start of the fourth quarter to go +15. Sorkin with a personal 4-0 streak made it 62-78 and laid the foundations for the double. Baldwin brought +18 and Di Bartolomeo’s three-pointer +20 with 1’36” before the end and the match ended at 67-85.
The quarters: 22-22, 43-46, 59-68, 67-85
The statistics
Source: Sport Fm
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