In the video: Pau’s loss summary
Apart from Maccabi Tel Aviv’s game against Alba, the 18th round opened for him with real drama. Fenerbahce achieved a third straight win – 71:73 over the Red Star – thanks to a basket of victory with Lorenzo Brown’s buzzer and stayed close to the Yellows. After that, the crisis in Panathinaikos deepened when they absorbed 89:77 from Zenit St. Petersburg, Barcelona defeated Valencia 72:86 and Basconia defeated CSKA 93:95 at the end of a thriller.
The Red Star (12: 6) – Fenerbahce (10: 8) 73:71
The Turks’ bad season in the Euroleague is starting to get positive and one pretty serious tweets. A rather fickle game culminated in Fener’s most recent attack in which Lorenzo Brown had a great room, scored with the buzzer and arranged for his team to win for the third time in a row leaving it strong in the battle for a place in the playoffs.
Fener enjoyed a great team game with five players finishing in double digits and above them all stood out Brown and Dyson Pierre who finished with 13 points each and Marko Godoric who scored 11 alongside eight rebounds. On the other side, ex-Maccabi Tel Aviv, Johnny O’Brien stood out with 17 points.
.@FBBasketbol takes it RIGHT at the end! pic.twitter.com/0ZligJc2qH
– Turkish Airlines EuroLeague (@EuroLeague) January 7, 2021
Watch Brown’s basket of victory >>>
Panathinaikos – Zenit St. Petersburg 89:77
Pau stands out as one of the weakest teams in the Euroleague this season and the trend has not changed tonight either. The Greens, without a regular coach, suffered their third loss in a row and the 12th of the season in Europe, which may also bring Oded Katash to Aoka.
Already from the first quarter the Russians took control of the game, when Arturas Godaitis (25 points) did not stop scoring inside the point. In a safe and careful manner the guest widened the gap and in fact the story ended in the third quarter, with the gap standing at 25 points.
Panathinaikos still managed to make the result plausible during a final quarter that was entirely to the record thanks to 14 points from Ioannis Papapatro. So what’s next? The Greens will try to stay away from the penultimate place on Wednesday against Wheelerban while the Russians will face Bayern Munich in the next round.
😻 νίκη 🆚 @paobcgr – 89:77. pic.twitter.com/CwZDfmGmcJ
– Basketball club Zenit (@zenitbasket) January 7, 2021
Basconia (9: 9) – CSKA (4:14) 93:95
After 12 consecutive victories, the Russians experienced a taste of loss, and one was quite tense. The hosts were already leading by 15 in the first quarter and into the fourth quarter they went into a 12-point lead, but CSKA did not give up easily and nine seconds to the end shrank to a point after two free throws by Yannis Sterlenikes. The latter went to Mike James who missed a shot from half-distance that could have sent the game to appreciation and left Dimitris Itudis disappointed.
James was CSKA’s standout man and finished with 20 points including 4 of 8 from outside the arc and was also aided by 13 points from Joel Bolomboy, Sterlenikes and Turnika Shangalya. CA.
Barcelona (6:12) – Valencia (8:10) 72:89
After three consecutive losses the “curse of the heart” was finally removed and the Catalans came back to win. Barcelona were close to dropping a 16-point lead in the second quarter, but in the fourth quarter ran away once again to a record of 19 points and did not look back. Alex Abrins led with 16 points including 4 of 6 for three, Corey Higgins and Adam Hanga added 13 each at Valencia and Louis Lavry balled with 17 points (4 of 6 off the arc).