MOSCOW, November 16 (R-Sport) – A buzzer-beating rebound from American guard K.C. Rivers gave BC Khimki a 71-70 home victory over Fenerbahce to take the Russians to the top of Euroleague Group A.
Thursday's win was Khimki's fourth in six games on Thursday, while Fenerbahce's third defeat leaves the Turkish team third in the group.
“In the first half of the game our team looked great, but in the second we loosened up and stopped playing with the same energy as in the first half,” Rivers said after the match. “But we won and that's great.”
After a close first quarter, the hosts stormed into the second with 11-0 run inspired by Sergei Monia’s outrageous three-pointer and finished the first half 10 points up.
But Khimki’s advantage was slowly melting through the second half, and Turkish guard Omer Onan leveled the score on 35 minutes.
In the breathtaking finale, the visitors came very close to the victory as ex-Houston Rockets center David Anderson put them into the lead with less than a minute to go.
But the Russians had the last attack where Rivers put away the rebound after Monia missed a three-pointer.
Rivers top-scored for Khimki with 14 points, while Anderson hit 17 for Fenerbahce.
Elsewhere, last year’s Euroleague runner-up CSKA Moscow beat Lietuvos Rytas on the road 71-62.
CSKA remains second in Group D after winning its fifth game, the Lithuanians are second from the bottom with only one win in six.
"We knew that it had to be a challenging game,” CSKA coach Ettore Messina was quoted as saying by the Euroleague website.
“We had problems in the first half because of our lack of discipline. But in the third quarter we played very well, out-rebounded them and took control of the game."
Ex-Toronto Raptors forward Sonny Weems top scored for the Russian champion once again notching up 19 points.
The teams were running neck-and-neck in the first half, with CSKA reaching a slender one-point advantage after 20 minutes.
But second-half three-pointers from Serbian guard Milos Teodosic and Weems put the visitors into a comfortable lead that CSKA made stick.
CSKA’s next match is against Partizan Belgrade, while Khimki will travel to Madrid to play Real next Thursday.
