@EuroLeague: New victories for Madrid and Fenerbahçe (Anthony Randolph, MVP)

In the first night of the EuroLeague Round 18, Madrid won 94 – 78 against Olympiacos, Fenerbahçe was better than Žalgiris Kaunas with a score of 78 – 61 and Efes defeated Khimki. The result of that match was 81 – 72.

In the first game of the night Vasilije Micić lead Efes to the twelfth victory in the best European club competition. The Serbian Point guard finished the match with 16 points and 8 assists (Index Rating of 21). Three teammates of him scored 11 points each one of them: Adrien Moerman (9 rebounds, Index Rating of 18), Bryant Dunston (Index Rating of 17) and James Anderson (Index Rating of 12). Doğuş Balbay also had a Great role in the win of his team with 7 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists (Index Rating of 13).

In the Russian squad, the best on the court was Jordan Mickey with 14 points and 9 rebounds (Index Rating of 21). Tony Crocker added 12 points (Index Rating of 11) and Anthony Gill scored 10 (Index Rating of 10). The Serbian player Stefan Marković spent more than 28 minutes on the court (28:08) and scored 8 points for Khimki.

The Crowd in the Sinan Erdem Dome in Istanbul was able to see different quarters of their favourite team. In the First quarter, they won 23 – 16 (+7). In the second, Khimki was better by 5 points (13 – 18, +5), the third one again belonged to the home squad (26 – 17, +9) and in the last, the Russian team was, again, better (19 – 21, +2), but the difference in the first and third 10 minutes (+16) were unreachable for the guests.

Another Istanbul squad was a host team in the first night of the Round 18 and also they won in front of their fans. Fenerbahçe scored its sixteenth win and remained on the first position after 18 rounds. This time, the team from Kaunas was a victim of the Željko Obradović squad and the guests lost with a 17 points difference (78 – 61).

The MVP of that match was Fener big man Jan Vesely, who scored 13 points with 12 rebounds (Index Rating of 26). He was followed by the Greek Point guard – Shooting guard Kostas Sloukas (Index Rating of 21) and the team captain Melih Mahmutoglu (Index Rating of 16) who both added 14 points (each one of them). Sloukas also had 6 assists. Nikola Kalinić added 6 points, while Marko Gudurić scored 5.

For the away team Brandon Davies scored the most points in the game (12, Index Rating of 10), while the best on the court was Paulius Jankūnas with 9 points and 5 rebounds (Index Rating of 13).

On the other end of Europe, at the west side, last year champion was hosting the Greek squad Olympiacos and won 94 – 78. This was a revenge for the loss in the Round 9 in the Peace and Friendship Stadium when Olympiacos was better by 5 (88 – 83).

The Home team took the lead from the beginning and won in all fourth quarters (28 – 23, 26 – 23, 18 – 17, 22 – 15). It was a one team performance all 40 minutes because Madrid easily rejected every attack of the away squad and didn’t allow them to make the game more interesting.

Anthony Randolph, from the ACB team, was the best with 16 points and 8 rebounds (Index Rating of 26), while two of his teammates scored 13 points each one of them: Facundo Campazzo (5 assists, Index Rating of 17) and Gustavo Ayón (7 rebounds, 4 assists, Index Rating of 20). There was another player from Madrid who finished the game with double-digit score: Jeffery Taylor, with 11 points (Index Rating of 13).

The Greek reds (Erythrolefki, The Red-Whites) played in Madrid without the Serbian center Nikola Milutinov, one of the top performers, and in his absence the best on the court was the captain Vassilis Spanoulis with 12 points and 11 assists (Index Rating of 18). Zach Leday scored the most points (15), and also had 8 rebounds but his Index Rating was 9. Nigel Williams-Goss finished the game with 13 points and 5 assists (Index Rating of 16), while Georgios Bogris scored the same numbers of points as Spanoulis (12) and his Index Rating was 16. The last double-digit scorer was Georgios Printezis with 11 points (Index Rating of 8).

This win left Madrid squad on the second position with 15 wins and 3 losses, right behind the Turkish Fenerbahçe, their opponent from the last year Final game at the EuroLeague Final 4 in Štark Arena in Belgrade (White City).