2006-07Regular SeasonRound 5
November 22, 2006 CET: 18:15
Local time: 20:15 SPORTS COMPLEX KRYLATSKOE

Dynamo Moscow downing Le Mans by a solid 74-57

Dynamo Moscow broke part of a Group A tie in positive fashion before its home fans by downing Le Mans by a solid 74-57 on Wednesday thanks to stellar defense. Dynamo improved to 3-2 with the result, while dropping Le Mans a victory behind at 2-3. After holding Le Mans to 7 points in the second quarter, Dynamo was leading by a comfortable 40-23 at the break, but in the third quarter, Le Mans woke up used consecutive three-pointers by Nicolas Batum to pull within 47-43. Antonis Fotsis brought down the house with a nine-meter triple on the third-quarter buzzer, however, and Dynamo never looked back as Eddie Gill helped guard a big margin the rest of the way. Fotsis was Dynamo's best scorer with 17 points. Dmitry Domani added 16 and Gill posted 10 of his 15 points in the last quarter. For Le Mans, Kenny Gregory led the way with 12 points, Tyson Wheeler had 11 and Eric Campbell 10 plus 11 rebounds.

After Le Mans center Sandro Nicevic was called for an offensive foul to start the game, a sign of problems to come for the guests, Travis Hansen opened fire from the arc for Dynamo. Nicevic replied with a basket before Domani drove to find a three-point basket-plus-free throw. At the other end, Dynamo's defense pushed hard to keep Le Mans from getting started, and the difference escalated to 10-4 when Antonis Fotsis sank free throws. Le Mans had serious problems scoring until Kenny Gregory finally saw the rim with a layup. That seemed to uncork Le Mans. Tyson Wheeler stole and sent Yannick Bokolo for a dunk, then rose for a triple of his own to make it 15-13 in minute 8. Hansen kept Dynamo ahead, but Gregory soon landed a new bomb from downtown to tie the score, 16-16. Fotsis made up for a previous mistake by striking with a triple that left Dynamo in front 19-16 after 10 minutes.

Eddie Gill opened the second quarter with Dynamo's third triple, after which the defense of the hosts kept Le Mans quiet until the athleticism of Bokolo earned him a layup. Dynamo looked for static attacks now as Yuri Vasilyev hit a five-meter jumper for a 24-18 score. The scoring run of the hosts continued with a Sergei Monya triple off the backboard. By the time Nicevic was called for a technical foul, his third, the lead was 30-19 on a free throw by Domani. Far from surrendering, Le Mans stayed aggressive as Nicolas Batum had a three-point play, but on defense, the visitors let Dynamo find easy baskets as Fotsis slammed to make it 34-23. Fotsis added 4 more points in a 6-0 finish to the half that put Dynamo way ahead, 40-23.

Making his first appearance of the seasaon, Le Mans big man Alain Koffi drove through Dynamo's defense for a layup to start the second half. Dynamo was less active than in the second quarter, but maintainted a big lead, 40-25, after 23 minutes. The Le Mans defense was now keeping Dynamo quiet as Campbell added a three-point play for the visitors. Andrei Trushkin finally broke the ice for Dynamo with free throws in the 24th minute, but Gregory and Koffi scored again for Le Mans to make it 42-31. Vasilyev and Monya combined then for 5 points to re-open a big lead, 47-33. Le Mans was not done, however. Gregory flew over Vasilyev for a basket-plus-free throw and Wheeler soon blasted for 3 points on one shot to make it 47-40. After a Dynamo timeout, Wheeler was at it again, striking from the arc to end a 0-10 run with Le Mans as close as 47-43. Hansen rescued Dynamo with a basket and then Fotsis had the last word from deep, beating the buzzer with a nine-meter triple that gave new life to Dynamo after three quarters, 52-45.

Domani and Gill scored easy baskets for Dynamo to start the fourth quarter, restoring a 58-45 advantge and destroying much of what Le Mans had accomplished earlier. Koffi recovered a loose ball to score his team's first points of the final quarter, but Fotsis squashed any hopes of the visitors with a new triple that made it a 14-point game, 61-47. NIcevic finally woke up for Le Mans with 3 straight baskets, but Gill replied with 2 three-pointers. As nobody else on Le Mans was ready to take over on offense, Dynamo was soon flirted with a 20-point advantage, getting as close as 72-53 on Bojan Popovic's free throw. Dynamos's defense didn't relax as Gill had a steal and free throws to finish another Dynamo home win.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Euroleague.net
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Referees: ARTEAGA, JUAN CARLOS; ANKARALI, RECEP; MOUZAKIS, COSTAS
Attendance: 1500
By Quarter1234
Dynamo Moscow19211222
Le Mans1672212
End of Quarter1234
Dynamo Moscow19405274
Le Mans16234557
Dynamo Moscow
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
4 POPOVIC, BOJAN 20:30 5 0/2 0/1 5/6   2 2 2   1     4 6 6
5 IVANOV, ANDREI DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
6 HANSEN, TRAVIS 24:45 8 2/2 1/7 1/2 1 3 4 2 2 3 1     1 8
7 KHVOSTOV, DMITRY 2:15     0/1   1   1     1     1   -2
8 GILL, EDDIE 27:15 15 2/3 3/4 2/2   2 2 2 3 1   1   2 20
10 BYKOV, SERGEY 10:00   0/1 0/1     1 1 3 1       1   2
11 MONIA, SERGEY 11:00 6 0/3 2/3   1 3 4   1       4   3
13 TRUSHKIN, ANDREI 15:00 3 0/3   3/4   1 1     1     2 2 -1
14 DOMANI, DMITRY 32:30 16 7/8   2/3 2 2 4 2 4     1 3 4 24
15 FOTSIS, ANTONIS 27:00 17 3/5 3/5 2/2 1 6 7 1 1 2 2 1 1 3 23
17 VASILYEV, YURI 29:45 4 2/5 0/1 0/2 2 2 4   1 1   1 4 1 -2
21 SHUKHOVTCOV, GRIGORY DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Team           1   1   7 1         7
Totals 200:00 74 16/32 9/23 15/21 9 22 31 12 20 11 3 4 20 19 88
        50% 39.1% 71.4%
Head coach: IVKOVIC, DUSAN
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
Le Mans
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
5 GREGORY, KENNY 35:45 12 4/9 1/2 1/1 2 4 6     1 1 1 1 1 11
6 AMAGOU, PAPE-PHILIPPE 23:15   0/1 0/2   1 1 2     1   1 3 1 -5
7 KOFFI, ALAIN 16:45 5 2/5   1/2 3 1 4 1 1 2   1 1 3 6
8 BATUM, NICOLAS 17:00 3 1/4   1/1 2 1 3 1 1 1 1   1 2 6
9 BOKOLO, YANNICK 17:45 7 2/4 1/2     1 1 1   3     2 1 2
10 NICEVIC, SANDRO 19:15 8 4/9     2 1 3   1 5     4 3 1
11 ADJIWANOU, FREDERIC 14:15 1 0/1   1/2   1 1   1 3     3 2 -3
12 CEL, AARON DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
13 CAMPBELL, ERIC 29:45 10 4/6 0/1 2/3 1 10 11   1 1 1   4 5 19
20 WHEELER, TYSON 26:15 11 0/1 3/8 2/2   4 4 2 2 2 1   1 2 13
Team           1   1   4 1         4
Totals 200:00 57 17/40 5/15 8/11 12 24 36 5 11 20 4 3 20 20 54
        42.5% 33.3% 72.7%
Head coach: COLLET, VINCENT
This game has no play by play yet

Head Coaches

IVKOVIC, DUSAN
Dynamo Moscow
"This game was very important because it was necessary to react to our game against Prokom. We played better against Dynamo Moscow Region on Sunday and continued with the progress here. Le Mans plays at a fast speed, it has 20 assists every game. It was important to score easy baskets in the beginning and establish a good rhythm. Our defense in the first half was great but in the third quarter we lost some energy, played bad offense and lost our speed: that's why we lost the period by 10 points. After that it became necessary to play with two point guards, Popovic and Gill simultaneously. We have a lot of problems with injuries but in a very short period of time we adapted. We transformed our game to a quick transition offense, but we are still waiting for Papadopoulos and Raicevic to return. They are very close. We hope to have them back in two or three weeks."
COLLET, VINCENT
Le Mans
"I think Dynamo played a good game despite missing Papadopoulos and Raicevic to injuries. For us, of course, it was not that good, especially in the first half. We were not ready for this game. Anyway, despite the fact that they beat us by 17 points, I think we had a chance to play better if we would have started more aggressively. There were different reasons for that bad game - if we do not mention the third period, but even in that period we made a lot of mistakes. If you want to win in Moscow you have to lessen the number of turnovers. Dynamo is the better team, and that's why it won, but this was our worst game in the Euroleague so far. To win on this level you have to give 100 percent. That was not the case for us tonight."

Players

HANSEN, TRAVIS
Dynamo Moscow
"Every game is very important for us now, and this is a significant victory. We beat them because we played good defense, made many steals, created fastbreak opportunities. We played very well as a team."
BYKOV, SERGEY
Dynamo Moscow
"We tried to play another kind of basketball without our main center, Papadopoulos, to use active defense, steal the ball and make easy baskets. Today, our three-point shooting was also good. Before this match, Le Mans averaged about 20 assists per game. So we had to stop their passing at the beginning and not allow them to run fastbreaks. They made only 5 assists today, so we got the job done. I would like to distinguish Domani and Fotsis. Our captain destroyed the Le Mans defense with his penetrations to the basket and Antonis shot well from behind the arc."
CAMPBELL, ERIC
Le Mans
"It was a tough loss. Dynamo got a big lead after the first quarter. We made stupid turnovers at the end of the second period. In the second half, we started to play the type of basketball we wanted to play before the game. We were close to making the score equal, but Fotsis's three-pointer at the end of third quarter was really big. Maybe it was a shock for us and it gave courage to Dynamo. So we lost finally. It's hard to beat Euroleague teams, especially on the road. But we have to be ready for the next matches and hope they will be better."
WHEELER, TYSON
Le Mans
"It was a hard game to play. We never went to the basket and made no easy shots. I am not sure why we played like this. Sometimes it just happens."
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