Crvena Zvezda lose second straight at ABA League

On Sunday, a tenacious Krka squad completed a comeback win over defending ABA League champions, Crvena Zvezda mts Beograd, 79-77, at Novo Mesto.

It was an amazing win indeed and a thrilling upset to boot. Krka has opened their ABA campaign on a positive note, climbing to 2-1 and claim fourth place in the league standings. On the other hand, Red Star is on unfamiliar ground with a losing streak to start things off. We’re more used to seeing them rack up monster win streaks over the last couple of seasons.

The guests came out shooting from the opening buzzer and Crvena Zvezda found a 3-point lead at the end of the first quarter. The second quarter brought more of the same success for the defending champs, improving their advantage to eight points, 37-45 at the end of the first half.

Krka’s home court crowd cheered them on as they slowly began to turn the tide in their favor after the break. But it was not until the fourth quarter that they truly shined through on the offensive end of the court. Krka got in the zone at the right time and thanks to some less-than-ideal lapses on defense on the side of Crvena Zvezda, were able to launch five of their 13 3-pointers for the game in the fourth quarter. It was enough of a boost in points to turn the tables and pull out the victory over their more heavily favored opponents.

Special mention has to go out to Krka’s Glenn Cosey, who hit 6-of-9 shots from beyond the arc en route to his game-high 20 points. Marko Josilo and Gani Lawal chimed in with 19 and 14 points, respectively.

On the side of Crvena Zvezda, Nikola Jovanovic paced his team with 16 points and seven boards.

Is it time for Red Star to panic? Probably not, but that said, they do need to make adjustments soon as only four teams in the ABA League advance into the playoffs, making it an extremely competitive race for postseason berths if things align that way.

In the meantime, here are the other results in Round 3 of the 2019-20 ABA League season:

Buducnost 80-83 Prmorska
Mornar Bar 65-76 Partizan
Igokea 90-95 Cedevita
Mega Bemax 98-74 Zadar
Cibona 63-81 FMP

For now, both Cedevita and FMP reign supreme in the ABA League, as the only two teams remaining with untarnished 3-0 records.