Partizan, a team built more for the future than this season, is suddenly sharing the lead of Group D following an 81-76 win against visiting Cibona Vip of Croatia in an emotional game. Center Jovo Stanojevic led the winners with 19 points. Vlado Scepanovic and Milos Vujanic added 16 each and Nenad Canak 15 for the winners. All that was needed to offset a 30-point night by teenage poing guard Zoran Planinic of Cibona, who was seconded with 12 points each from Calvin Bowman and Reggie Freeman. Bowman was the only big man left for Cibona after the early fourth quarter, when Aleksander Okunsky went off with five fouls and Niksa Prkacin with a pair of technicals. As Bowman had 4 fouls himself, Stanojevic soon turned unstoppable for the Cibona defense, and together with Scepanovic, took the victory home. Partizan is now 4-1 and holding its own atop Group D while Cibona sees its record drop to 2-3.

The game in Belgrade started with nervousness on both sides. The result was miserable two-point shooting by Cibona - 8 for 23 in the first 20 minutes - while Partizan had problems with defensive rebounds (10 offensive rebounds for Cibona in the first half). In the first two periods there was only one star at the floor: Planinic. He scored 21 points after 20 minutes, which surprised all the Partizan players and the crowd of 6,483 in Belgrade's Pionir Arena.

The second half started with a 15-4 Partizan run that Cibona answered with its own run of 2-14. The result at the end of third period was 60-61 in favor of the visitors from Zagreb. But the key moments came in the fourth quarter when Cibona lost its centers. Planinic stayed on highest level but he was the only one in the team. Partizan dominated with Stanojevic and Nenad Canak. Milos Vujanic finaly scored two importamt three-pointers, Scepanovic too and the fourth victory in Euroleague was celibrated together with the crowd.