Euroleague Round-Up, Week 8: Dragan Bender shines in Maccabi victory

The Euroleague regular season is winding down, with just two weeks left before we shift to the Round of 16. Six berths are still available, with Anadolu Efes, Laboral Kutxa and Zalgiris clinching spots this weekend. It was a fun week of games all in all, with several tight matchups, a couple of upsets and some surprising individual performances — including a huge showing from Dragan Bender.

Group A

Group A has been full of parity since the beginning of round robin play, and after an early slide, Crvena Zvezda has rebounded to make the group even more interesting. Despite playing without star forward Luka Mitrovic because of a serious knee injury, Crvena’s won three of their last four games to come within a victory of qualifying for the Round of 16.

They beat Khimki Moscow in a thrilling 96-91 showdown, and much like they did in their win last week over Real Madrid, they relied on former Denver Nugget Quincy Miller and German center Maik Zirbes to make it happen. The two combined for 52 points, 14 rebounds and five steals, and made several clutch plays down the stretch. None was more clutch, however, than this monstrous Miller putback off a Zirbes miss that put Crvena up for good:

Alexey Shved had his best game of the season with 28 points on 10-13 shooting and six assists. He was able to consistently penetrate the Crvena defense off the dribble and almost single-handedly kept Khimki afloat in the third quarter. But once again, Khimki’s lack of useful size hurt them — they were out-rebounded 46-29. If Khimki doesn’t advance to the next round, frontcourt play will likely be why.

Bayern Munich rolled over Strasbourg in a game that was never close. Bayern held Strasbourg to 3-20 shooting from outside and were able to dominate in the frontcourt, getting 14 points and eight rebounds from former UNC Tar Heel Deon Thompson and 17 points from John Bryant. Paul Zipser had four points, five rebounds and a block in the effort, and continues his strong play off the bench for Bayern.

For Strasbourg, their struggles were best captured by former Dallas Maverick Rodrigue Beaubois, who had the worst shooting day of the competition — an 0-11 disaster.

And then there was Real Madrid, who saved their season with an 80-73 victory over Fenerbahce. Fenerbahce got out to a 46-35 first half lead behind strong play from Jan Vesely (20 points), but Gustavo Ayon had eight of his 15 points in the third quarter to lead an impressive comeback for Madrid, who put the game away in the fourth. Willy Hernangomez was big off the bench for Madrid, with four points and a team-leading six rebounds. They’ve struggled at times in this round, but with matchups against Bayern Munich and Strasbourg left, they’re in great position to advance.

Group B

Laboral Kutxa laid the weekend’s biggest beatdown, dropping Limoges by 36 points. Laboral stepped on the gas with a 29-15 first quarter and kept their foot on throughout the game, never letting Limoges score more than 15 points in a quarter. Darius Adams paced Kutxa with 23 points and five steals, while former Brooklyn Nets forward Tornike Shengelia had his first big performance of the tournament, shooting 4-8 for 11 points off the bench. Leo Westermann had 14 points to pace Limoges, but that was counteracted by six turnovers. Limoges had 18 turnovers for the game to just ten for Laboral, completing what was a dismal all-around performance.

Olympiacos effectively eliminated EA7 Milano in a 73-63 win. This game was a husk of the entertaining Olympiacos win the first time these teams played, mainly because these are the two most injury-ravaged teams in the tournament. Olympiacos is without their starting frontcourt of Patric Young and Georgis Printezis, while Milano was playing without their only effective offensive weapon in Alessandro Gentile. Olympiacos got 12 points and five rebounds from Nikola Milutinov, though, who stepped up in a big way in his return from injury.

Olympiacos is now 3-0 since Printezis and Young went out. When they get back healthy, expect them to be title contenders.

Anadolu Efes finally advanced to the Round of 16, using a 24-10 fourth quarter to knock off Cedevita. Leading Efes was Dario Saric, who had another double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Despite the strong offensive output, his defense was a little iffy at times, highlighted by this strange decision to leave Cedevita’s best 3-point shooter when he had the ball:

Fran Pilepic, the shooter above, went 4-4 from distance for 12 points, while Jacob Pullen added 17 points. But luckily, Saric’s offense was enough to overcome his questionable defense, and Efes picked up the win.

Group C

In “Things that weren’t supposed to happen,” Zielona Gora picked up their second win of the competition by holding group leader Kuban Krasnodar to 51 points. And this wasn’t just Lokomotiv holding their starters out — although guys like Kyrylo Fesenko and Evgeny Voronov played reduced minutes. Malcolm Delaney, Chris Singleton and Anthony Randolph still played plenty, but Kuban Krasnodar just couldn’t get the ball in the hoop, shooting 41.7 percent inside the arc and 13.6 percent beyond it.

Zielona wasn’t particularly impressive offensively, paced by Dejan Borovnjak’s 11 points, but their defense was enough to prey on Kuban Krasnodar’s poor shooting to get a weird victory.

Thanks to a win and previous results against Panathinaikos, Zalgiris advanced to the Round of 16. They beat Pinar Karsiyaka comfortably, 74-52, overcoming 24 turnovers by holding Karsiyaka to 1-16 shooting from 3. Mantas Kalnietis led the Lithuanian squad with 17 points, seven rebounds and six assists, while Olivier Hanlan added seven points, three rebounds and four assists off the bench. Colton Iverson had 10 points and five rebounds for Karsiyaka, but Zalgiris jumping out to a 40-25 lead put the game out of reach early on, and the starters didn’t play much in this one.

Panathinaikos took command with a 24-13 2nd quarter against Barcelona, and pulled out a 93-86 victory to become a step closer to advancing. Leading the charge for Panathinaikos was Miroslav Radujica, who had 25 points and four rebounds. Nick Calathes, who flirted with a triple-double, also impressed with his best performance of the competition. Alex Abrines led Barca with 21 points, but couldn’t quite keep pace with the efficiency of the Pana offense, as they hit 50 percent from 3-point range and attempted 38 free throws in the win.

Group D

Kuban Krasnodar wasn’t the only team to get upset this weekend — Unicaja Malaga was beaten by Darussafaka in a defensive struggle, 63-57. Darussafaka only had six players score and two score in double-digits, but both played extremely well. Milko Bjelica (18 points and three rebounds) and Reggie Redding (19 points with four steals) controlled the pace of the game by slowing down possessions and dictating tempo. Nemanja Nedovic had another nice effort for Malaga with 13 points and three assists, but 24 turnovers from the Spanish squad helped Darussafaka stay alive.

CSKA Moscow beat Brose Baskets, 100-88, solving Brose’s defense by attacking the basket early, sucking defenders in and bombing 3s over the top. Leading the way was Nando De Colo, who had 27 points and eleven assists. He worked the pick-and-roll early with Andrey Vorontsevich and went on a 10-1 run by himself in the third quarter to pull away. Nicolo Melli had 16 points and five boards to pace Brose, but even their fantastic defense couldn’t stop the best offense in the tournament from posting its third 100+ point effort.

Finally, Maccabi Tel Aviv got a feel-good win, holding off Dinamo Sassari in a close contest. It was a well-played game for both teams, as Sassari got 26 points from Marquez Haynes and a 19-point, six rebound effort from Jarvis Varnado. Maccabi countered with 19/5 from Sylen Landesberg, and got 16 points from Guy Pnini. But the biggest news of this game was…

Prospect of the Week: Dragan Bender, Maccabi Tel Aviv

Dragan Bender played 17 minutes! He was pretty quiet for the most part, but it was nice to see him in the rotation and involved on both ends.

Offensively, Maccabi used Bender as a spot-up shooter primarily, and he hit one 3-pointer on four attempts. We didn’t get to see him much with the ball in his hands, but you could tell Sassari respected his shooting, which opened up driving lanes for Brian Randle and Landesberg. He was incredibly active in transition, too, getting a piece of the ball on a Christian Eyenga fast break dunk. Defensively was where he really made an impression, though. Bender played sound off-ball defense, clinging to Brian Sacchetti and Joe Alexander, and he did a good job denying the ball to Sassari shooters.

Bender’s biggest play of the game was the biggest one for his team as well, rotating over on a Haynes drive and swatting what would have been the game-tying basket.

Bender finally got a chance to be a full rotation player for Maccabi, and he rewarded them by making the biggest defensive play of the game.

Next Week

Every game in Group A is huge, seeing as everyone outside of Fenerbahce fights to advance. Real Madrid-Bayern Munich, Fenerbahce-Crvena Zvedza and Strasbourg-Khimki all should be excellent games. In Group B, Cedevita can officially advance if they beat EA7 Milano, and ditto in Group C for Panathinaikos if they can beat Zielona Gora. In Group D, Maccabi Tel Aviv still has the slimmest of chances to advance, and they can help themselves do so if they beat Brose Baskets and CSKA Moscow beats Darussafaka.