From Stefan Djordjevic of eurohoops.net:
The game between Khimki Moscow and Maccabi Tel Aviv went down to a close finish but the latter came out with an 89-87 road win in EuroLeague Round 5.
It was the 6-0 run at the three-minute mark that gave Khimki some space with 75-70 on the scoreboard and despite back-to-back threes by Angelo Caloiaro, Alexey Shved answered with two of his own that kept the Russian ahead.
However, Maccabi didn’t let up until the very last second and Tyler Dorsey crowned that effort with his eighth triple of the game to force overtime.
The extra five minutes featured a tough, low-scoring play on both sides but it was Elijah Bryant’s back-to-back shots from deep to push Maccabi up 87-85 with a minute left, and their defense closed the deal.
Bryant finished with ten points while Tyler Dorsey was the man who stole the spotlight with a fiery career-high 26 points on 8-13 from the three-point range, setting the record for most threes made in a single EuroLeague game by a Maccabi as well as a Greek player.
“We needed this win bad. The last couple, three games, we lost at the end of the game, and we’ve finally closed one out. It was nerve-wracking but we got it done, and we’ve just got to build off this. We finally got a win on the road and we have to continue that next week. I caught the hot hand, my teammates were finding me in good spots, and I just continued to stay confident. We have to stay confident as a group and continue to grow. It’s a long season, it’s still early. There are going to be a lot of ups and downs, but we showed fight tonight and we’re going to continue that,” Dorsey said after the game.
Ante Zizic scored 16 while Caloiaro had 15 points and ten rebounds. Scottie Wilbekin, despite struggling with his shot, logged 12 points along with six assists and four steals.
Greg Monroe helped with 15 and Devin Booker with 14 points including a few nice dunks created by Shved’s alley-oops. Booker also grabbed 12 boards.
On the other side, this was Shved’s first EuroLeague game this season as he returned from injury and what a comeback it was. He logged a double-double with 32 points on 6-12 from deep while also dishing 11 assists.
This must have been a heartbreaking loss for the Khimki squad which finally got some of its missing players back and is still searching for their first win in EuroLeague this season (0-5). Maccabi, however, bounced back from three straight close losses and now holds a 2-3 record.
Maccabi coach Ioannis Sfairopoulos believes his squad deserved the win: “I think we showed our character. We fought until the end. We brought the game to overtime. We didn’t give up when Khimki was five points up. I think that with the way that we played, we deserved to win because we fought until the end. We lost three games before that in the last seconds of the game, so I think it was our time now to win.”
This must have been a heartbreaking loss for the Khimki squad which finally got some of its missing players back and is still searching for their first win in EuroLeague this season (0-5). Maccabi, however, bounced back from three straight close losses and now holds a 2-3 record.
