Balanced Unicaja grabs home win over Limoges

Unicaja Malaga secured an important home victory by fending off Limoges CSP 79-72 on Tuesday at Palacio De Deportes Jose Maria Martin Carpena. Adam Waczynski paced four Unicaja scorers in double figures with 16 points. Giorgi Shermadini had 13 points and both Brian Roberts and Mathias Lessort added 10. Unicaja, which also got 9 points and 8 rebounds from Kyle Wiltjer, improved to 2-1 in Group G. Limoges dropped to 0-3 despite Dwight Hardy picking up 13 points. Isaiah Miles added 12 points and Axel Bouteille scored 10.

Wiltjer opened the scoring and Waczynski's three-pointer made it 5-2. Limoges answered with a 0-8 run to go up 5-10, but Waczynski hit another triple and was followed from long distance by Wiltjer, Roberts and Jaime Fernandez for a 19-13 advantage. Yet another Waczynski three had the hosts up 24-18 after 10 minutes. William Howard had a three-pointer of his own to start the second quarter for Limoges, but Waczynski knocked down another triple and Unicaja held the guests to just one basket in a 5-minute stretch, while Roberts had 4 points in building a 41-29 advantage, which was 41-31 at the intermission. Limoges had a good start to the second half with Miles and Howard draining three-pointers to get within 43-41. Lessort responded with his first two baskets of the game before Shermadini had two scores and Daniel Diez nailed a triple as the Unicaja cushion reached 64-55 after 30 minutes. After 2 baskets and an assist at the end of the third quarter, Jonathan Rousselle nailed a three-pointer and assisted on Jerry Boutsiele's score to bring Limoges within 64-60. A Bouteille three-ball helped trim the gap to 68-65, but Roberts came up with a big three-pointer for a 75-68 lead and Limoges scored just 2 points in 2 minutes down the stretch.

Game-changing sequence

Limoges fought back and trailed just 72-68 before Brian Roberts knocked down a big three-pointer and Limoges did not get closer than 5 points in the final 2 minutes.

Pivotal performer

Adam Waczynski scored all 16 of his points in the first 14 minutes of the game and also contributed 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 1 block.

Telling numbers

Unicaja outrebounded Limoges 39-27 and sent Limoges to the free throw line just 6 times (3 of 6 - 50.0%) while hitting 9 of its 16 free throws (56.3%). The rebounding advantage plus hitting 20 of 27 two-point shots (74.1%) helped Unicaja overcome committing 18 turnovers compared to 10 for Limoges.

Next games

These two teams will go at it again in just over a week; Limoges will host Unicaja on Wednesday, January 23.