It passed like a siphon from Vitoria and Efes stayed alive for the play-ins!

Alive in the hunt for the top 10 and qualifying for the Euroleague play-ins remained Anatolou Efes!

Thanks to an improbable third quarter where they were outscored 28-8 (!), Tomislav Mijatovic’s side cruised past Vitoria and home Baskonia with a score of 97-76 for the 32nd matchday of the competition!

With this victory, the Turks reached the three consecutive pink match cards by climbing at 15-17 and on the edge of the top ten, at the same time when the Basques, with their third consecutive defeat, fell at 16-16, now even risking being left out of play-in!

Leading for the winners was Larkin with 28 points, 2 assists and 4/8 three-pointers, with Clyburn to follow in performance with 20 points. For the hosts o Howard stayed… low with 15 points and 2/11 shooting, at the time where o Rogavopoulos had a good presence with 12 points (2/2tr.) and 1 rebound in 16 minutes of participation.

The match:

The start of the match was explosive for her Anatolou Efes, which, with the help of her long-range shooting (4 three-pointers in the first 5 minutes), built double-digit values ​​early on (6-17) in the 5′. After a sluggish start, Baskonia slowly began to find rhythm in attack, thanks mainly to the individual quality of Howard and Moneke. Nevertheless, the visitors continued their offensive crescendo and with Clyburn scoring 12 points, they closed the quarter. at +10 for 32-22.

Topu havaya at?n, gerisini Jones’a b?rak?n! ?? #BenimYerimBuras? pic.twitter.com/OnpJqrFLc9

— Anadolu Efes SK (@AnadoluEfesSK) March 28, 2024

The scene was similar at the beginning of the second period, where the Turks maintained the difference with relative comfort on the edges of ten points. Finding scores from many players, Tomislav Tomiatovic’s total even reached +12 for 49-37 at 18′. However, in the last minute, two three-pointers from the Nikos Rogavopoulos and a buzzer beater two-pointer by McIntyre, sent both teams to the locker room with score 45-49!

?? Codi Buzzer-Mcintyre ??@Baskonia x @EuroLeague#SKWEEKLive #EveryGameMatters pic.twitter.com/2nd8R1uO7N

— SKWEEK (@skweektv) March 28, 2024

Despite the outbreak of the Basques at the end of the first half, Efes, not only did not… chew, but responded with the same and even greater intensity in the third quarter. Specifically, with a terrible 16-2 run in the first six minutes of the period, the Turks jumped the difference to +18 for 65-47, while a little later, they also touched +24 for 77-53 in the quarter! It was characteristic that the individual score in the 3rd period was 28-8, at the time when Baskonia had 3/12 shots and Efes 9/15!

Somehow and somewhat unexpectedly, the fourth and last quarter became a procedural one, with the guests comfortably maintaining the difference at high levels, finally getting the pink card with the final 97-76.

The quarters: 22-32, 45-49, 53-77, 76-97.

See the match statistics here.