We had great Basketball tonight in Istanbul when Efes Pilsen got a home win over Maccabi Tel Aviv 90-88. The two teams kept a close distance for the entire game when on Maccabi's side Willie Solomon (28 points) and Maceo Baston (29) were the main weapons and Marco Popovic (18) and Henry Domercant (22) led Efes Pilsen. With less than a minute to the end of the game, Domercant set the score from the line to 90-87 for Efes, than with seconds left to the end came the foul over Solomon who made 1 of his shots and missed the second one on purpose to give his team a last chance on this game, but than Anthony Parker missed a triple attempt with the buzzer and gave Pilsen the dramatic home win 90-88 and the perfect record on Group B.

Another drama took place in Poland when Barcelona got a road win against local Prokom Trefl, the hosts were down by only one point 57-56 with 1:30 to the end, but Shammond Williams made crucial shots from the line to get his team far enough at the end of the game 65-60. Williams was the top scorer for Barcelona with 24 points and Filip Dylewics led his team with 15 points (100% FG) and 4 rebounds.

Benetton Treviso got its first loss this season, against Zalgiris 88-70. Zalgiris Benetton could not outscore Zalgiris in any one of the quarters and a 23-13 run for Zalgiris in the third quarter gave the hosts the safe distance until the end. 19 points for Elias Ayuso and 18 points each for Reggie Freeman and Darjus Lavrinovic (8 rebounds) on the winning side, Petar Popovic led Benetton with 16 points.

Unicaja shocked Montepaschi 17-9 in the first quarter, and didn't let Siena any chance to come back until the end when the score was 82-60. Jorge Garbajosa led the winners with 19 points and 9 rebounds, while Marcelo Nikola led Montepaschi with 16 points and 6 rebounds.

Together with Efes Pilsen, two more teams remain unbeaten after this round. The first is Panathinaikos who outscored Partizan 28-5 and 16-6 in the second and third quarter respectively, a good last quarter by Partizan was too late for the visitors and Panathinaikos won 81-62 with Fragiskos Alvertis scoring 13 points for PAO and Nikola Loncar scoring 19 points for Partizan.

The last team to keep a clean sheet is Real Madrid, which got an easy win against Ulker 70-58. Marko Thomas led Real with 18 points and 4 rebounds.

An excellent first quarter was enough for Strasbourg to get an home win against Union Olimpija 90-82, Ljublijana managed to come back but the hosts were better in the third quarter and with 26 points by Alvin Young got their first Euroleague win. Teemu Rannikko led his team with 20 points and 5 assists.

24.11.2005