Continuing its impressive start this year in Greece and Europe, on Saturday afternoon (18/10) the AEK!
His team Dragan Sakota celebrated her third win in as many Stoiximan GBL opening games, winning with the impressive 77-62 of Karditsa Japanese at SUNEL Arena in the game with which he opened the curtain of the 3rd turn of the championship.
“Union” achieved this result thanks to their very good defense almost throughout the match, making the most of many and effortless mistakes of the guestsafter finding 17 points from the 18 mistakes of Papanikolopoulos’ team. In fact, the “yellow and black” have arrived to lead even with +26.
Top for the winners, who now count 5/5 league and BCL winswas the Frank Bartley with 19 points, 4 assists and 4 rebounds, with Gray (12 points, 3 points), Silva (10 points, 4 points) and Katsivelis (7 points, 4 points, 1 assist). For Karditsa, Damien Jefferson (16p., 4p.) and Wiggins (11p., 8p.) were rescued.
The match:
The beginning of the match was quite balanced, with the AEK to lead 7-3 in the first two minutes thanks to the baskets of Bartley, Silva and Arms, with Carditsa to answer with Ellis and Damien Jefferson for the 7-8 after two minutes. With Bartley’s two-point three-pointer and Flionis’ follow-up, “Union” took the lead again (12-8) in the 5th minute. That was it last field goal of the “yellow and black” the rest of the period, as mistakes and missed shots held them to just two points off shots in the second quarter. At the same time, the guests proved to be more consistent in scoring and with B. Jefferson, Wiggins, and Camberides, closed it first quarter ahead with a score of 15-14.
At second period AEK entered the court very energetically and concentrated, both in attack and defense. With Kuzminskas and Charalambopoulos scoring from a three-pointer and Bartley making an impressive goal-foul, “Union” led 23-15 in the 12th minute. In fact, thanks to her excellent defense, she forced Karditsa into many unforced errors (6 in the period) and many bad choices offensively, as a result, with Katsivelis and Gray in the foreground, she ran an individual score of 10-3 in the next four minutes, blowing the difference at +15 and 33-18! With Jefferson’s three-pointer, Karditsa took an offensive “breather”, before the hosts with Katsiveli and Kuzminskas sent the two teams to the locker room with the score at 37-22.
Despite the brief interruption, the image of the match did not change at all third quarter. The team of coach Papanikolopoulos continued to make one mistake after another, looking completely out of rhythm, at the time when AEK was punishing every naivety of the opponent and with an 11-1 run, blew the difference at +25 and 48-23 in the 23rd minute! From the middle of the period onwards, Karditsa reacted and began to find the way to the opposing basket, with Madsen and B. Jefferson closing the gap a bit for the 61-39 of the quarter.
With everything having been decided in the Closed of Ano Liosia, the only thing that remained to be known in fourth and final period was the final score. The – given – laxity of AEK due to the extent of the score, allowed the visitors to “nibble” the difference and to consolidate the situation a little. With Hochler and Damien Jefferson as protagonists, they dropped as many as 13 points, before AEK got the pink card with final 77-62.
The quarters: 14-15, 37-22, 61-39, 77-62.
See here the statistics of the match.
Source: Sport Fm
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