Partizan Squanders 11-Point Lead and Loses at Asvel
Partizan lost 82-75 to Asvel in Round 8 of the EuroLeague in Villeurbanne, even though it led by 11 points with five minutes left.
Joan Penarroya was hit with a technical foul late in the game in Villeurbanne. Asvel was already pulling away, with Patty Mills and Joel Bolomboy stretching the lead, while Partizan’s Spanish coach reacted furiously on the bench.
Only a few minutes earlier, things looked very different. With five minutes to play, the black-and-whites led by 11 points and appeared headed for a fifth EuroLeague win. Instead, on Wednesday, October 28, at the LDLC Arena near Lyon, they went home empty-handed: Partizan lost to Asvel 82-75 in Round 8 (22-19, 14-13, 20-27, 26-16).
After the defeat, Partizan stands at four wins and four losses and sits 11th in the EuroLeague. Asvel, at 3-5, is 15th.
How did Partizan build an 11-point lead?
The start gave no hint of it. Asvel led 7-0 after two minutes, and the first field goal for the visitors came from Carlik Jones, after a drive. Partizan answered with a 10-0 run, finished by a three from Lamar Stevens, and drew level. Hayes and Stevens then put the visitors ahead.
Asvel came back through offensive rebounds and Partizan mistakes, and in the second quarter it built a double-digit gap. The teams went to halftime at 36-32 for the hosts, after threes from Luka Vildoza and Ethan Thompson.
The third quarter told a different story. Thompson opened with a three, Kevarius Hayes hit twice in a row, and Robert Franks scored five points just before the final ten minutes to give Partizan a 59-56 edge. In the fourth quarter, a string of threes took Partizan to its biggest lead.
Sources disagree on how big that lead was. RTS and B92 report that Partizan led by 11, while Mozzart Sport writes that the largest margin was eight, after a three-point play by Nikola Tanaskovic.
What happened in the last five minutes?
Asvel owed its comeback mostly to Tremont Waters, whose threes and drives pulled the hosts back into the game. A three from Besson cut the gap to just two points, and the hosts then punished Partizan’s mistakes with a 10-0 run, to 75-73. Jae Crowder hit from a tough spot while the visitors kept missing at the rim.
Mills and Bolomboy decided it. Stevens missed a three on Partizan’s last possession, and Bolomboy dunked to make it 82-75. Mozzart Sport writes that in the final minute and a half the black-and-whites put up no resistance at all.
RTS points to poor rebounding and weak free-throw shooting as the causes of the loss. At one point in the game Asvel had 13 offensive rebounds to 12 defensive ones. Partizan came into the game with the weakest offense in the EuroLeague, 78.7 points per game after seven rounds, and with under 30 percent from three-point range in four straight EuroLeague games. That is why the two newcomers, Franks and Antonio Reeves, were expected to improve the long-range shooting.
What did Penarroya say after the loss?
At the post-game press conference the Spaniard first congratulated the hosts, then described the finish:
“First of all, congratulations to Asvel on the win. The feeling is bad. I think that in the last five minutes we stopped playing our game. It is important that Asvel believed in the win and managed to turn the score around. But in the last four minutes we had a lot of trouble finding good shots and getting to the free-throw line. Our defense was poor, they were getting easy points, and there was also that three from Besson. The feeling is that we missed a good chance to win another game on the road. All games are decided over 40 minutes, that is the EuroLeague.”
Penarroya added that he will have to watch the game again, but that he already knows what proved decisive:
“I will have to watch the game again and analyze it, but it is clear that in the last four minutes we stopped and that was not normal.”
Who played well and who did not?
Partizan:
- Hayes 15 points and 8 rebounds
- Stevens 13 points and 5 rebounds
- Vildoza 9, Thompson 9
- Jones 7 points and 5 assists
- Franks 7 points and 5 rebounds (EuroLeague debut)
- Tanaskovic 6 points and 5 assists
- Reeves 5, Pajola 3 points and 7 assists, Lovergne 1
Asvel:
- Mills 14 points, Waters 14 points and 7 assists
- Crowder 13, Bolomboy 12
- Goc 8, Besson 8, Massa 7
Pajola, with seven assists, was Partizan’s best passer, and Waters matched that number for Asvel.
What is next for Partizan?
The black-and-whites opened their double-round week with a defeat, and already on Friday, October 30, they travel to Zalgiris in Kaunas. Asvel hosts Baskonia the same day. Partizan came to Villeurbanne after a derby with Red Star and a tense finish in Subotica, and it heads to Kaunas with the same problems it had in France: rebounding, free throws and the offense in the closing minutes.
