Third time’s a charm: Partizan NIS scored first victory (@ABA_League 2017-2018)

In front of their own crowd in “Aleksandar Nikolić” sports hall, Partizan BC won 87 – 84 against FMP and scored their first victory in the new season of ABA League.

At the very beginning, Partizan was leading and sometimes it was double digits lead, but guests from Železnik, suburb of Belgrade, were always trying to find a way to get back in the game and to surprise host and win the game.

In the last minute black and whites scored a 6 points lead and only thing that FMP could do is to reduce the score and finish the game with the score 87 – 84 (28 – 20, 17 – 23, 22 – 17, 20 – 24).

The best scorer in Partizan was Patrick Miller with 20 points, Vanja Marinković added 15, Nigel Williams-Goss 13 (9 assists) and Marko Čakarević finished the match with 12 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists and 3 steals. In FMP, the best was Filip Čović with 24 and 7 assists, Nemanja Nenadić scored 15 and Michael Ojo 12 points.

In the first quarter there were a lot of personal faults on both sides, and it was a long one and after that 10 minutes Partizan was leading by 8 points (28:20).

In the second quarter, team from Železnik started to play better, and Čović started to score more so they were only losing by two in the end of first half (45 – 43).

In the second half, teams played similar as in the first. In the third quarter, black and whites players Miller and Mihajlo Andrić were leaders in the team and they helped Partizan not to lose advantage which in one moment was 10 points. But, till the end of the quarter FMP manage to get back to the game.

In the last quarter there were lot of surprises and the crucial moment was when Partizan’s player Strahinja Gavrilović managed to score for two when it left 40 seconds to the end of the game. And in the next attack, Filip Čović from FMP missed a three points shot so the final score was 87:84.

This was the second loss for team from Železnik and the first win for Miroslav Nikolić’s team in regional league.

“After those two loss and those two shots that we didn’t hit, we needed a win. FMP is one of the best and most talented teams in the league and it was hard to win against them. We completed our team late and I joined the team after EuroBaket so we are still in the process of creating our game. It still isn’t good enough but we will play better. We rushed in offense when we had time to think it trough, and lot of players wanted to end the play by themselves but we managed to win, so that is important for now”, said Partizan’s head coach after the game.

Next game for Partizan will be in Berlin against Alba, on October 11, where they start their journey in EuroCup.