01 September, 2016
30 April, 2017
8 Mindaugas Girdžiūnas (LTU)
02/11/2016
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Neptunas are the team to beat in Group C

KLAIPEDA (Basketball Champions League) – Neptunas Klaipeda concluded Gameday 3 as the solitary leaders of Group C on a 3-0 record after delivering yet another performance on Wednesday night to down French champions ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne 81-67 at home.

"We executed very well, the guys did a great job of sticking to the game plan for 40 minutes.," said Neptunas head coach Dainius Adomaitis. "We made some mistakes but they were not crucial and we always recovered well from them. The second very important thing was that we fought in the paint and got the defensive rebounds. They have size, but we did well to close down and deny them second-chance points."

The Lithuanian side claimed the lead right from the opening tip-off and an Arvydas Siksnius triple with eight minutes remaining in the second quarter sparked a superb 21-8 burst that propelled them to a 48-33 lead at the half-time buzzer. ASVEL never managed to get the gap back to single digits again as Neptunas did well to keep them at arm's length throughout the second half.

Jimmy Baron led Neptunas with 16 points on 4-of-7 shooting from behind the arc and Martynas Mazeika added 15 points as nine players had wrote their name on the scoresheet for the home already by the end of the first half. Nikola Dragovic had a game-high 18 points and added eight rebounds for ASVEL in a losing effort.

"We knew all about ASVEL, we were prepared for them and the most important thing was defence," said Mazeika. "We did not play defence as we wanted in the first quarter but in the last 30 minutes we did very well at the back and that is why we won this game."