Asseco Prokom light up the third quarter to beat Union Olimpija 67-52: Euroleague Recap
The fifth game of Wednesday evening witnessed an encounter between the two lightweights of Group D, Asseco Prokom and Union Olimpija.
Prokom entered the game winless in their last seven encounters, but courtesy of a 23-3 third quarter run, managed to register their first win (67-52) of the tournament. Both teams are now languishing at the bottom of the group
table with a 1-7 record; however Prokom do have a better point differential.
Three Prokom players, Lukasz Seweryn, Przemyslaw Frasunkiewickz and Jerel Blassingame scored 12 points to lead the way. However, the real difference maker on the night was Donatas Motiejunas, the Lithuanian native who will play
for the Houston Rockets in this NBA season.
Donatas scored 11 and created an all-time Euroleague single-game record of 18 defensive rebounds. He also grabbed three offensive rebounds and finished the night with a total of 21 boards. Adam Lapeta also drilled 9 points and
clutched 11 rebounds as the Polish champions won the battle on the glass, 48-34.
Asseco Prokom Head Coach Tomas Pacesas highlighted that difference as the most crucial one on the night;
"I want to congratulate Olimpija. We knew that it would be tough game for us. I am happy that we played good on the boards. We won the rebounding battle and that was one of the reasons why we won today."
Boris Rothbart paced Olimpija with 16 points and 11 rebounds. Deon Thompson and Aleksandar Capin amassed 11 points each. Aleksandar also dished out 7 assists while Sasu Salin finished the night with 10.
Union won the first two quarters and were leading by 30-27 at the end of the first half. However a third quarter meltdown took them out of the equation completely. Their coach Saso Filipovski rued the slip up after the game, but
maintained that his team showed some improvement;
"We played good for three quarters, but in the third we couldn’t find solutions for their aggressive defense and we didn’t have enough energy to play in the last 10 minutes. We lost, but I want to congratulate my team for its good
fight and character."
The result of the game will not affect the group standings much as both are already out of the Top-16 round contention.
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