2018-19Regular SeasonRound 6
November 08, 2018 CET: 21:45
Local time: 20:45 GRAN CANARIA ARENA

Late comeback gives Efes road win over Gran Canaria

Anadolu Efes Istanbul completed a remarkable fourth-quarter comeback to claim a thrilling 90-94 victory over Herbalife Gran Canaria on Thursday night. With the victory, Efes pushed its record to 4-2, while the hosts dropped to 1-5. Efes was behind for most of the game and trailed by 10 points with less than five minutes remaining, but Gran Canaria's offense stalled at just the wrong moment and Krunoslav Simon netted a nerveless three-pointer with 26 seconds remaining to take the win. Simon led the scoring for Efes with 18 points, while Bryant Dunston had a double-double of 12 points and 11 rebounds. There were also significant scoring contributions from Vasilije Micic (17), James Anderson (13), Tibor Pleiss (12) and Rodrigue Beaubois (11). D.J. Strawberry led Gran Canaria with 19 points and 7 assists. Eulis Baez scored 14 points and Christopher Evans had 12.

A steal and slam from Micic was the highlight as Efes raced ahead early, but Gran Canaria came back to lead through a triple and alley-oop layup from Evans. Kim Tillie struck from deep and Strawberry threw down a slam to complete a 14-2 run, but Simon and Anderson scored threes for Efes and it was 25-24 after 10 minutes. Anzejs Pasecniks threw down two alley-oops to stretch the home team's lead early in the second, but Micic scored 5 consecutive points to tighten it up again. Evans pushed Gran Canaria further ahead by scoring 7 quick points, including 5 free throws, but Micic continued his strong first half with a pair of identical driving layups before Brock Motum knocked down a three and Simon beat the halftime buzzer for a 52-50 score at the break. Beaubois scored the first 5 points of the second half, but the hosts went back ahead through 4 points from Baez. Then Strawberry made a three-point play and hit a triple for a 65-57 lead before a couple of Dunston dunks brought Efes back yet again. Oliver's triple made it 73-70 after three quarters, and he scored three more baskets early in the fourth to stretch the lead to 80-72. Efes responded with a three-point play from Simon and an Adrien Moerman fastbreak slam. A series of free throws sent Gran Canaria up by double digits for the first time, but still, Efes wasn't dead as Beaubois led another revival. Simon's free throws made it 88-87 inside the final two minutes before Baez and Pleiss traded close-range finishes. Then Simon's triple sent Efes ahead, and free throws from Micic sealed the deal.

Late slow-down kills Gran Canaria

The tone for a high-scoring game was set straight away when Anderson netted the first basket of the game – a three-pointer – with just 6 seconds elapsed. The points continued to flow with both teams reaching the half-century before the break, but Gran Canaria eventually stalled at just the wrong time by scoring only one field goal in the last eight minutes.

Ataman rolls the dice with foul trouble

Efes ran into foul trouble early in the second half when four key players – Dunston, Micic, Anderson and Dogus Balbay – all reached three fouls. Coach Ergin Ataman kept faith in them, though, and they initially avoided further fouls until Balbay got a couple of quick ones to reach five midway through the final quarter, soon followed to the bench by Dunston. By then, Simon was also on four fouls but Ataman kept him in…and was rewarded when he scored 5 points in the last two minutes including the game-winner.

Oliver lights it up

After becoming the oldest player to score in his EuroLeague debut earlier in the season, Oliver showed he is still evergreen by exploding into action late in the game. Having not previously scored, he finished the third quarter with a three-pointer, then added another at the start of the fourth followed by a pair of two-pointers. That made 10 points in 2:05, and although it ultimately wasn't enough for victory, the 40-year-old showed he still has what it takes.

Next round

Efes will look to advance to 5-2 with a home game against Panathinaikos OPAP Athens next Friday evening, while Gran Canaria will search for its second win with a home game against Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv.

Krunoslav Simon - Anadolu Efes Istanbul - EB18
Thursday, November 8, 2018
Euroleague.net
Referees: LATISEVS, OLEGS; PANTHER, ANNE; THEPENIER, HUGUES
Attendance: 4641
By Quarter1234
Herbalife Gran Canaria25272117
Anadolu Efes Istanbul24262024
End of Quarter1234
Herbalife Gran Canaria25527390
Anadolu Efes Istanbul24507094
Herbalife Gran Canaria
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
2 BALCEROWSKI, ALEKSANDER DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
4 OLIVER, ALBERT 15:22 10 2/4 2/3         3   1   1     8
5 HANNAH, CLEVIN 24:38 9 4/6 0/3 1/1       3 1 2     3 1 4
8 ERIKSSON, MARCUS 14:03 2 1/4 0/4     2 2 2           2 1
12 BALVIN, ONDREJ 15:13 2 1/3     1 2 3 1   1     2   1
13 BAEZ, EULIS 23:18 14 3/5 1/1 5/8 2 3 5   1 2     3 4 14
14 PASECNIKS, ANZEJS 20:15 10 4/4 0/1 2/2   1 1     3 1   4 3 7
21 PAULI, ORIOL 0:04                              
22 RABASEDA, XAVIER 14:46 5 1/2 1/1     1 1 1 1 2     3 4 6
23 EVANS, CHRISTOPHER 24:12 12 2/7 1/1 5/5 2 2 4 1 1       3 5 15
24 STRAWBERRY, DJ 26:57 19 4/8 2/5 5/5   5 5 7 1     1 2 4 26
41 TILLIE, KIM 21:12 7 0/1 2/3 1/2   4 4     1     3 1 5
Team           2 4 6               6
Totals 200:00 90 22/44 9/22 19/23 7 24 31 18 5 12 1 2 23 24 93
        50% 40.9% 82.6%
Head coach: MALDONADO, SALVA
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
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 DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1 BEAUBOIS, RODRIGUE 33:09 11 3/4 1/5 2/2       4   4     3 2 5
4 BALBAY, DOGUS 17:38   0/1 0/1   1   1 2     1   5 1 -2
6 BIRSEN, METECAN DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
12 MOTUM, BROCK 10:36 9 1/3 2/3 1/2   1 1     2   1   2 5
18 MOERMAN, ADRIEN 23:52 2 1/4 0/1   1 8 9 3 1 2     1 1 9
19 TUNCER, BUGRAHAN DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
21 PLEISS, TIBOR 9:43 12 5/6 0/1 2/2 1 3 4             1 15
22 MICIC, VASILIJE 28:28 17 4/7 1/3 6/6       4 2 5     3 8 18
23 ANDERSON, JAMES 24:35 13 3/5 2/4 1/2 1 3 4           3 2 11
42 DUNSTON, BRYANT 30:15 12 5/5   2/3 3 8 11   1 1 1   5 2 20
44 SIMON, KRUNOSLAV 21:44 18 2/4 3/6 5/5   3 3 4 1 2     4 4 19
Team           1 1 2               2
Totals 200:00 94 24/39 9/24 19/22 8 27 35 17 5 16 2 1 24 23 102
        61.5% 37.5% 86.4%
Head coach: ATAMAN, ERGIN

Head Coaches

MALDONADO, SALVA
Herbalife Gran Canaria
"Congratulations to Anadolu Efes for the victory. I think it was a great game; we won three quarters and had a very good 36 minutes. We didn't make the last shots in the final four minutes and were possibly tired. It is difficult to understand; if we had made our last shot, we would have won, the situation would have changed. We arrived to the final minutes and took some correct shots, but missed them - and they scored immediately. Then they hit a three-pointer and it is true we had a lot of stress in the final minutes. In this competition, especially in this one, you get punished because of this. We were doing well; if someone told us we would be leading by 10, scoring 88 points against Anadolu Efes with four minutes left, you can think that the home team did something right to have this lead. When we missed shots, we made mistakes and got into a situation in which the opponent showed its talent and experience. It also happened to us against CSKA. The truth is that these are good teams that hit shots in critical moments, and we didn't score those shots."
ATAMAN, ERGIN
Anadolu Efes Istanbul
“We didn’t play good basketball tonight. We gave them a lot of easy points, especially [Albert] Oliver. We didn’t find a way to stop him when [Bryant] Dunston was out. We got lucky because Gran Canaria played better than us. We played better in the last two or three minutes, but I'm not satisfied.”

Players

OLIVER, ALBERT
Herbalife Gran Canaria
"I think we played a good game, especially in the second half. We were on top until the last four minutes. We weren't able to score and they were better than us."
SIMON, KRUNOSLAV
Anadolu Efes Istanbul
“They were playing great the whole game and I wasn't happy with our game, but the last two or three minutes we played well and made some important shots. We've had a lot of close finishes and that shows how close this league is. I hope this will give us confidence for future games.”
DUNSTON, BRYANT
Anadolu Efes Istanbul
“We calmed down at a point it started getting tense. We were giving up easy baskets and stopped playing defense, but at the end of the game we tried to focus more and take better shots. We got some luck on our side, but if we play better D we could avoid these problems. We’ve got to get better defensively next time.”