Three-way tie atop Turkish Airlines EuroLeague standings

Round 16 of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague is officially in the books and it’s not much of a surprise that there’s a three-team logjam atop of the standings.

On Friday, FC Barcelona Lassa bested Olympiacos Piraeus at home 90-80 to keep in stride with Anadolu Efes Istanbul and Real Madrid. All three clubs now have 13-3 records and deservedly so. They’ve been the most consistent teams so far this season and it has reflected in their results in Europe’s most competitive basketball league.

The three teams are two full games ahead of former champions Maccabi Tel Aviv and CSKA Moscow, who are at 11-5 and sit at fourth and fifth places, respectively.

The two Spanish rivals have managed to keep things very competitive even outside of Spain’s Liga ACB, while Anadolu Efes has parlayed a strong start to the season into a multi-week stint atop of the leader boards.

Barca was just running on all cylinders post-holiday period. They kept their offense going from start to finish. Despite a valiant attempt at a run in the second quarter by Olympiacos, Barcelona managed to pull away once again after the halftime break and never needed to look back.

Not many eyebrows were raised in this game as Nikola Mirotic was simply too much for the Olympiacos defense to handle. He dominated his guests with a stellar performance highlighted by a game-high 21 points and 15 rebounds, adding two triples, one steal and one block to the box score. Kyle Kuric accounted for three of the team’s 11 3-pointers in this game en route to his 18 points.

Willie Reed led the charge for Olympiacos with 15 points, while Aleksandar Veznkov and Kostas Papanikolaou each chipped in 14 points.

Barcelona moves on to face off against KIROLBET Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz  on January 2nd, while Olympiacos hopes to get another mark in their win column against a tough opponent in Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul on the same day.