BC Mures kept their traveling fans on the edge of their seats in Medias, but came away with a hard fought and vital victory. Before the game the two teams were standing in 9th and 10th place, with the same number of points.
BC Mures took the better start and took a six point lead, but Medias fought back and had only a two point deficit at the first interval, 19-21. In the second period the hosts took control and built up a six point margin, only to see it shrink to three after a reckless foul by Nikolic on an Adamovic desperation buzzer beater: 40-37.
In the first half BC Mures had a horrific 16% 3 point shooting, only one successful shot from behind the arc. Fortunately this percentage improved after the break and this was one of the keys of the game.
In the second half, Medias stepped away from their opponents and a 10 point lead in the 25th minute made coach Sekulovic ask for a second time out in five minutes. This proved to be the biggest lead of the game, from here on the Tigers had taken control. Slowly but surely, they clawed back into the game and after tying it at 65 they never looked back. Medias payed the price for their short bench, they couldn't keep up the pace in the fourth quarter.
Filip Adamovic was the top scorer of the game with 21 points, adding 5 rebounds. He also had 7/7 free throw percentage. Ivan Ivanovic had a few bad decisions during the game, including a three point attempt in the last 20 seconds, when he should have kept the possession, to run down the time, but he ended up with 14 points and 5 rebounds. Kyndall Dykes started slowly, and his point tally of 11 wasn't spectacular, but he made up for it by collecting 13 rebounds. Vaidotas Peciukas scored 11 points and brought energy to the game. Ousmane Barro had one of his worst days so far, losing many balls under the basket, some of them unforced by the opponents. Lazar Laszlo stepped up the defence in the second half, made the Medias offense run into a wall under the basket, scored 6 points and collected 6 rebounds. Andrei Capusan scored 7 points with 3 rebounds. Matija Ceskovic didn't score from the field, but his four free throws in the final minutes proved to be decisive. Polyak Laszlo played only a few minutes and couldn't show anything in that time. Corpodean didn't play.
All in all BC Mures struggled to get the victory, but deserved it in the end. Medias put up a valiant effort and gave hope to their fans, but the longer rotation proved to be decisive in the end, where Nikolic, Navickas and Durkovic were all very tired after playing almost 40 minutes each.
Top scorers:
Gaz Metan Medias: Pustahvar 19 (3), Durkovic 18, Navickas 16 (3).
BC Mures: Adamovic 21 (2), Ivanovic 14 (2), Dykes 11 (1), Peciukas 11 (1).
Full statistics on the FRB website.
In the next round BC Mures will go to Craiova, and Medias will travel to Cluj to play against U-BT.
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