Reyer produces late burst to down Promitheas

Umana Reyer Venice used a late explosion to overcome Promitheas Patras 68-78. A low-scoring first half saw Promitheas take a series of small leads without ever being allowed to feel comfortable. Promitheas opened the second half with a 10-0 burst, but Reyer fought back with its own 0-10 run to go ahead 51-52 with ten minutes left. It stayed close in the fourth quarter until Reyer produced a 0-15 run in three minutes to seal the win. Mitchell Watt bagged a double-double for Reyer with 13 points and 12 rebounds. Victor Sanders and Michael Bramos also scored 13, and Jeff Brooks added 12. Jerai Grant led the hosts with 19 points, Kendrick Ray scored 17 and Dimitris Agravanis had 14. Promitheas drops to 2-6 while Reyer improves to 4-4.

Promitheas made a fast start behind 5 points from Grant including a layup-and-one. Jeff Brooks and Tarik Phillip got Reyer on the board but Grant was on target again to make it 9-4 midway through the first. Michele Vitali, Ray (twice) and Phillip all struck from deep in a flurry of three-pointers, keeping Promitheas ahead at 15-10. Mitchell Watt’s first basket made it 16-12 at the end of the first. Bruno Cerella scored Reyer’s first 6 points of the second quarter, but Ray and Nikolaos Gkikas kept the host in front, 22-18. After a slow spell of scoring, Nikolaos Rogkavopoulos’s tip-in and Ray’s threeball were answered by free throws and a three-point play from Watt, and a fastbreak score by Bramos gave Reyer its first lead, 27-28. Grant hit straight back and Abdul Gaddy added a long two, making it 31-30 at the break.

Agravanis opened the second half with a three-point play, before Grant scored twice and Agravanis made another three-point play to cap a 10-0 burst. Sanders finally got the visitors moving with 5 points in a row, before Valerio Mazzola and Sanders added another couple of three-pointers to make it 46-41. Bramos scored inside and Mazzola added a triple for a 46-48 lead after a 0-10 run. Dario Hunt inside and Gkikas from deep responded for Promitheas, and Agravanis beat the buzzer to make it 54-52 after three quarters. Agravanis scored twice early in the fourth quarter, but Brooks bettered that with three scores for a 59-59 tie. Then Bramos launched Reyer’s explosion with a three-pointer, before Sanders added a layup, Bramos hit a threeball-and-one, Watt and Vitali also scored with fouls and it was all over.

Individuals take turns to star

Different players took turns to dominate the action with whirlwind passages of play. Promitheas center Jerai Grant starred in the opening stages, scoring the first 5 points of the game and advancing to 7 points with just over four minutes played. Reyer veteran Bruno Cerella nearly matched that in the second period, scoring the first 6 points of the quarter for the visiting team. In the third quarter it was the turn of Reyer guard Victor Sanders, who snapped a 10-0 Promitheas run by scoring 10 points in less than four minutes. Finally it was Dimitris Agravanis who took over, beating the third quarter with a long two-and-one, before adding 5 more points in the first four minutes of the fourth period.

Reyer finds its range after the break

Both teams struggled to find their range from long-range, with the only three-pointers in the opening 16 minutes coming in a flurry of four consecutive triples midway through the first quarter. Otherwise it was a series of misses, and the interval arrived with Promitheas going 3-of-14 from beyond the arc – all scored by Kendrick Ray – while Reyer went 2-of-11. But Reyer improved dramatically in the second half, with Michael Bramos and Valerio Mazzola finding their range as the visitors finished with 9-of-25 triples converted. The hosts only made 4-of-23.

Late flurry made the difference

It was perhaps no surprise to see the home team enduring offensive struggles, as Promitheas came into the game averaging a EuroCup-low 73.0 points. The home team’s best chance of winning the game was defense, and for 35 minutes that was the case as the game stayed tight and low-scoring. But then a 0-15 run in less than four minutes, helped by a series of baskets with fouls, allowed the visiting team to accelerate away for the victory as the Reyer defense held firm at the other end.