Darussafaka with the first chance vs. Nanterre
Darussafaka with the first chance vs. Nanterre
The second round of Eurocup group stages starts today with the duel between Darussafaka and Nanterre. In the first round, both teams won the matches in front of good teams. Also in the national competition they started well. Let’s see who will be the winner and why.
In the first round of Eurocup, Darussafaka won away at Cedevita Olimpija 79-73. Colson Bonzie (16 points, 8 rebounds) and Gary Browne (14 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists) were the main contributors for them in the game. Their main strengths were the rebounds battle (48-31) and blocks (6-0). From those stats, we can see that inside the paint they have very good players in Bonzie Colson and Jonathan Hamilton. But this weekend in the national league they lost against Bursaspor 81-63. They started poorly the game because at the halftime they were trailed 54-26. They forced a comeback in the third quarter, but in the fourth, they gave up and let the bench players play more minutes, in order to have the starting players’ fresh for this game.
Nanterre won the first game against Joventut 85-78. Kenny Chery (24 points and 9 assists) and Dallas Moore (20 points and 4 assists) were the main reasons for this good victory. They also won the rebounds battle by 4. In the rotation they had 9 players, everybody scoring at least 2 points. But, in the national league, they also lost the game against Dijon 80-84, despite they had a 4-points lead in the last quarter. Chery scored only 5 points in 35 minutes and the 3-point shooting was poor, with only 7 shoots made out of 20 attempts. In this game, all five players played at least 28 minutes, which may be a problem for the French team, giving the fact that they have to travel to Turkey.
Both teams’ present good squads and good rotation, but Darussafaka have the advantage here. First of all, they play at home with the support of their fans. Second, their starting players had more time to recover and also played less minutes in the weekend. And speaking about bench players, both benches are at the same level, so the difference will be made by the starting five.
Photo: twitter.com/dackabasket
Bogdan Vasile Tirc
