2020-21Regular SeasonRound 20
Anadolu Efes Istanbul 99
Khimki Moscow Region 60
January 14, 2021 CET: 18:30
Local time: 20:30 SINAN ERDEM SPORTS HALL.

Efes crushes Khimki, 99-60

Anadolu Efes Istanbul continued its climb up the standings by dominating last-place Khimki Moscow Region for a 99-60 home win on Thursday. With its third win in the last four games, Efes raised its record to 11-9 as it continues knocking at the door of the top eight playoff places. Khimki lost its 12th straight to drop to 2-18. Sertac Sanli came off the bench to lead Efes with a career-high 19 points, 17 of them in a second half that the hosts won by 47-24. Shane Larkin followed with 15 points, while Bugrahan Tuncer and Bryant Dunston scored 12 each. Khimki got 14 points from Jordan Mickey, 13 from Alexey Shved and 10 from Devin Booker.

Larkin's first triple marked a 7-0 Efes start until Sergey Karasev scored Khimki's first basket and then matched James Anderson's put-back with a steal-and-layup combo. Larkin and Shved traded triples at 12-8, then Moerman and Booker joined the scoring. Larkin stayed hot from deep then stole and finished to make it 19-10. Shved scored 4 points before Evgeny Voronov beat the first-quarter buzzer with a triple to cut the difference to 26-19. Mickey's swooping dunk led to back-to-back triples from Shved as Khimki quickly drew within 28-26. McCollum blasted a corner triple at 30-29 that Dunston answered with a dunk and a steal that Dogus Balbay finished. Thus steadied, Efes moved ahead again 40-32 on triples by Burgrahan Tuncer and Moerman. After Mickey and Tuncer exchanged baskets, Larkin converted a three-point and Dunston drove to make it 47-37. Rodrigue Beaubois added a lane jumper before Dunston measured off a rare three-pointer to beat the buzzer for a 52-26 Efes lead at the half.

Micic stuck a triple and fed Sertac Sanli to open the second half by raising the lead to 57-36. Sergey Monia's three-pointer stopped the bleeding for Khimki but Efes kept rolling to a 66-39 lead on a dunk by Balbay and back-to-back baskets by Sanli, who added an assist and another jumper to make it 75-44 after 30 minutes. Tuncer scored 5 points and fed Sanli and Anderson to keep the Efes lead safe at 84-50 early in the final quarter. Efes was content to trade baskets, and Sanli and Tuncer were happy to oblige, as time dwindled in what was a long-determined outcome in favor of the hosts.

Record home win

The 39-point final difference was the biggest home win and second-widest margin of victory overall for Efes in its 459 games to date in 20 EuroLeague seasons this century. It was far, however, from the club-record 51-point difference that Efes recorded on the road against Olympiacos Piraeus back on December 9, 2004. That game ranks fourth and is the biggest win by a road team ever. Thursday's Efes win was the second-widest margin of victory this season after FC Barcelona's 97-55 win over Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul back in Round 8.

Game-long dominance

Khimki came as close as 29-28 in the second quarter, but after that, it was all Efes as the hosts scored at least 23 points in all four quarters and held the visitors to a high of 19 in the first. The final difference, combined with the 77-105 pasting that Efes put on Khimki in Moscow earlier in the season, gave Efes the sweep of their series by an average margin of 33.5 points.

Endless bench

After Efes went up by 16 points at the half, two bench players took over. Sertac Sanli scored a career-high 19 points on 8-for-10 two-point shooting while making his sole three-point try. Bugrahan Tuncer netted his personal best of 12 points to go with 5 rebounds and 4 assists. Sanli scored 17 of his points after intermission while Tuncer had 7 of his in the fourth quarter.

Rebound riot

Efes based the victory on rebounds, too, pulling a season-high 41 boards while holding Khimki to just 26. The difference on the offensive glass was 12 to 6. Adrien Moerman and Rodrigue Beaubois led the effort with 6 rebounds each.

Milestones

Efes forward Chris Singleton made 2 steals to reach 200 total for his EuroLeague career, becoming just the 25th player to reach that milestone. Efes guard Vasilije Micic scored 8 points to put him at 1,501 for his career.

Khimki's woes

Khimki's 12th loss in a row is a club record and its 2-18 record the worst in the EuroLeague since it moved to the new format in the 2016-17 season. Two more consecutive defeats would tie the EuroLeague record of 14.

Next games

Efes looks for its fourth win in a row when it visits Zenit St Petersburg in Round 21 next Friday, January 21. On the same night, Khimki will try to break its losing streak on the floor of Panathinaikos OPAP Athens.

Sertac Sanli - Anadolu Efes Istanbul - EB20
Thursday, January 14, 2021
Euroleague.net
Referees: HIERREZUELO, DANIEL; JOVCIC, MILIVOJE; RADOJKOVIC, JOSIP
Attendance: 0
By Quarter1234
Anadolu Efes Istanbul26262324
Khimki Moscow Region19171014
End of Quarter1234
Anadolu Efes Istanbul26527599
Khimki Moscow Region19364660
Anadolu Efes Istanbul
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
0 LARKIN, SHANE 24:50 15 3/3 2/4 3/4   5 5 5 2 2     2 5 25
1 BEAUBOIS, RODRIGUE 26:38 9 1/6 1/1 4/4 2 4 6 4       1 1 2 14
2 SINGLETON, CHRIS 16:44 3 1/1 0/2 1/1   2 2   2       1 1 5
3 SAYBIR, YIGITCAN 4:09 2 1/2 0/1   1   1               1
4 BALBAY, DOGUS 13:57 4 2/2       1 1   1 1     2 1 4
11 GAZI, ERTEN 3:37   0/1 0/1           1     1     -2
15 SANLI, SERTAC 18:01 19 8/10 1/1   2 1 3 2 1       1   22
18 MOERMAN, ADRIEN 20:51 9 1/3 1/2 4/4 2 4 6 1 1       1 2 15
19 TUNCER, BUGRAHAN 11:37 12 3/3 2/3   2 3 5 4   1     1   18
22 MICIC, VASILIJE 23:54 8 2/6 1/4 1/3 1 1 2 6   2   1 2 4 6
23 ANDERSON, JAMES 15:27 6 3/4 0/1   2 3 5           1 1 9
42 DUNSTON, BRYANT 20:15 12 3/5 1/1 3/5   2 2 1 1   1   4 4 13
Team             3 3     2         1
Totals 200:00 99 28/46 9/21 16/21 12 29 41 23 9 8 1 3 16 20 131
        60.9% 42.9% 76.2%
Head coach: ATAMAN, ERGIN
Min: Minutes played; Pts: Points; 2FG M-A: 2-point Field Goals (Made-Attempted); 3FG M-A: 3-point Field Goals (Made-Attempted); FT M-A: Free Throws (Made-Attempted); Rebounds: O (Offensive), D (Defensive), T (Total); As: Assists; St: Steals; To: Turnovers; Bl: Blocks (Fv: In Favor / Ag: Against); Fouls: Cm (Commited), Rv (Received); PIR: Performance Index Rating
Khimki Moscow Region
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
1 SHVED, ALEXEY 23:30 13 3/5 2/7 1/2 1 1 2 2   5     1 2 5
3 MCCOLLUM, ERRICK 18:19 6 1/4 1/2 1/2   1 1     2     1 2 1
7 KARASEV, SERGEY 15:38 4 2/3 0/2     1 1   1       4   -1
8 ZAITCEV, VIACHESLAV 25:08 2 1/3 0/1     2 2 4 2 3   1 1 3 5
12 MONIA, SERGEY 21:15 6   2/6     4 4 2 1   1   3   7
13 SHARAPOV, VLADISLAV DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
17 ODINOKOV, VLADISLAV 3:26           1 1     1          
18 VORONOV, EVGENY 17:50 5 0/2 1/3 2/2 2   2 1   1 1   1 2 5
31 BOOKER, DEVIN 29:06 10 5/6 0/1   2 6 8 1   2     3 1 13
45 BERTANS, DAIRIS 18:30     0/2         1         5 2 -4
55 MICKEY, JORDAN 27:18 14 5/7 0/3 4/4   3 3     1 1   1 4 15
Team           1 1 2               2
Totals 200:00 60 17/30 6/27 8/10 6 20 26 11 4 15 3 1 20 16 48
        56.7% 22.2% 80%
Head coach: KURTINAITIS, RIMAS

Head Coaches

ATAMAN, ERGIN
Anadolu Efes Istanbul
"We played good basketball. Of course, Khimki has a defensive problem. We moved the ball with good spacing in the pick-and-roll and the extra pass. We found very good baskets and played very spectacular on offense. But the key again is on defense, especially Dogus Balbay after the beginning, because Shved started very active in the first quarter. But then Dogus was very successful in stopping Shved, and when you stop Shved they have a big problem. Then we found easy baskets and in the last quarter we played with young players."
KURTINAITIS, RIMAS
Khimki Moscow Region
"I want to congratulate Anadolu Efes on a really good job; they played a nice game. We were not fast enough. Our energy was less than half of what Efes showed. In such a short time we couldn't fix some things, especially rebounds, that was our biggest problem tonight. We were down by 15 rebounds. This is the reason why we lost this game."

Players

SANLI, SERTAC
Anadolu Efes Istanbul
"I want to thank my teammates for always seeing me in the open spots. I just took the shots then. This was a good win for us and we want to keep going like that. We improved our defense in the second half, stole some balls and made the easy baskets. Those were our principles at the beginning of the game, and we played better in the second half, which is how we won easy."
LARKIN, SHANE
Anadolu Efes Istanbul
"We feel good. We got a couple of wins in a row now. I feel like we're getting a little bit of our rhythm back. So we've just got to continue to play hard, play together and take steps in the right direction. We make a lot of adjustments at halftime to come out in the third quarter and just try to put a lot of defensive pressure on the other teams. Then we can get into our running game, and when we can do that and play with pace, it's tough to defend us. If we can continue to do that, we'll continue to get wins. I feel alright. It's been a long season but step by step, we're trying to get back to where we were and where need to be. We just have to continue to grind and we'll see where we end up."