Mega Leks - KK Partizan 80:87 (ABA Liga, round 24)

The team is still like a landscape after battle. 6 (six) players as well as head coach Aleksandar Džikić are still in pieces. The management had a press release today explaining that the players/coach staff are suffering from salmonella infection, many of them had to get hospital treatment and God knows when they’ll be strong and healthy again.
Nevertheless the beginning of the game against Mega Leks wasn’t that bad. We were leading to 2:5, Mega equalized (5:5), the overly strict referees whistled a lot of fouls for both teams. (Less than a minute passed, but Jaramaz already had two fouls...) Mega took the lead for a while (7:5), but it meant no headache for us to jump to 7:12.

We kept our advantage. It wasn’t too big (15:20), but we kept it. For the end of the quarter Mega approached us, even equalized (24:24), but Birčević took back the lead with a buzzer-beater (24:26).

Stefan Pot during the game

We marched through the second quarter and we played quite well. There was only one hiccup, when Mega took the lead again (34:33), but we took it back quickly (34:36) with a great Pot-Majstorović teamwork. There was one thing though that was problematic, Mega made a lot of turnovers/steals. They followed the "player vs. player"-tactics, every Partizan-player got his "escort" in pink jersey. It actually worked for the home team, though for our great luck they missed out most of their attempts. We were leading, we could make it to 39:45, the first half ended with 43:47.

Andrić made an extraordinary job

The third quarter brought some struggling. We were leading, but at this point we did miss those players who were on sick leave. Mega missed out their chances over and over again, while we kept our advantage. We didn’t make it beautiful or spectacular, but all our players put their hearts out to the court. This was what mattered. Nothing else. The quarter ended with 62:68, with Mega scoring a buzzer-beater.

Vrabac also had an excellent performance

We had an amazing start in the last quarter. We almost made our advantage to 10 points (64:73), which changed to 68:75. This again changed to 75:75 while Mega still couldn’t score one single 3-pointer. They took the lead though (77:75), but it didn’t last long again, because Pot equalized, then Birčević took it back for us (77:79). Rebić from Mega was fouled out, we were leading (77:82), the home team seemed to be more and more tensed, so they missed out even more attempts. We reached the 10-point-difference for the end of the game (77:87), and less than a minute was left when Mega finally scored a 3-pointer. Just in time. (80:87)

Mega Leks: Rebić (2), Jaramaz (8), Spasojević (5), Glogovac, Kaba (18), Zagorac (16), Simeunović, Tejić (2), Novak (14), Kapetanović, Marelja (15), Samardžiski

KK Partizan: Robinson (3), Vrabac (12), Tanasković, Veličković, Majstorović (8), Birčević (20), Andrić (20), Pot (15), Gordon, Luković (9)

Highlights:

Current championship standings:
1. CZ 47 points
2. Cedevita 42 points
3. Partizan 42 points
4. Budućnost 41 points
5. Igokea 36 points
6. Cibona 34 points
7. FMP 34 points
8. Union Olimpija 34 points
9. Mega Leks 33 points
10. Karpoš 33 points
11. Mornar Bar 32 points
12. MZT Skopje 32 points
13. Krka 31 points
14. Zadar 30 points

(photos: aba-liga.com)