Turkish Airlines EuroLeague: Round 28 Friday
Round 28 of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague was completed on Friday, ending a busy week of action. With just one playoff position left to play for, all eyes were on Baskonia as it visited Barcelona. The Vitoria team downed Barca and is now in a dominant position for the last playoff position. Elsewhere, CSKA defeated Khimki in a Moscow derby, while Brose Bamberg defeated Malaga in a dead rubber.
Khimki Moscow Region vs. CSKA Moscow, 73-90
CSKA Moscow’s dominance over the season’s Turkish Airlines EuroLeague continued on Friday with a big road win over Khimki. Both clubs had already qualified ahead of this Moscow derby, while CSKA had already locked up first place in the standings. Still, the former champs improved to 23-5 on this win, while Khimki dropped to 16-12, but still has its first ever playoff series to look forward to. Khimki also has the best single-season scorer in EuroLeague history after Alexey Shved took his tally to 609 points. Yes, that ties with Keith Langford who numbered that amount for Unics Kazan last season, but Shved has many more contest to play this campaign.
Brose Bamberg vs. Unicaja Malaga, 93-88
Both these clubs have put a solid effort in an attempt to rescue their Turkish Airline EuroLeague season’s and reach the playoffs. However, both Bamberg and Malaga ultimately fell short and were playing for pride in Germany. Bamberg has been in hot form recently and doubled down on that with a solid high-scoring win. The success moves the Bundesliga champs to 11-17. Malaga could have stayed in the picture with slim hopes with a win here, but now the reigning EuroCup champ is eliminated on the same 11-17 record.
Barcelona vs. Baskonia Vitoria, 73-86
Baskonia continued to maintain pole position in the race for the final playoff berth with a cruising road win over down and out Barcelona. The success puts Baskonia on 15-13, two games ahead of ninth placed Maccabi Tel Aviv and with just two games to play. Of course, the two teams play each other next week in what will be a massive contest that Tel Aviv must win. As for Barcelona, its awful European season is trickling to an end with the Catalan team now on a 9-19 record, the second worst in the standings.