01 September, 2016
30 April, 2017
Play-Offs Quarter-Final report: Pinar Karsiyaka hold off Venezia in first leg
22/03/2017
News
to read

Play-Offs Quarter-Final report: Pinar Karsiyaka hold off Venezia in first leg


IZMIR (Basketball Champions League) - Pinar Karsiyaka held on for a 74-71 victory over Umana Reyer Venezia in their Play-Offs Quarter-Final match-up on Wednesday, to take a three point advantage into the second leg next week.

Mateusz Ponitka carried Karsiyaka with 17 of his 25 points in the first half, and added 8 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals, but the Turkish side were frustrated to have given up a double digit lead after a late comeback from Venezia.


"Congratulations to the Venezia team because they play really well tonight," Ponitka said in the post-game press conference.

"...We started very well, we had a good lead in the beginning of the game but we lost concentration and that caused us their very good part of the game.

"They came back from 12-15 points and felt they could win the game, fortunately with the help of our fans who came today, they helped us a lot to finish the game.

"We are going to go there with a good mentality, we have nothing to lose, we beat them two times, we want to beat them three times and we're going to be really motivated because this is a do or die game for us."

Ponitka was not the only one frustrated with the performance. Nenad Markovic, the Karsiyaka Head Coach said:

"I think only the first quarter we played the way we want to play, all other three quarters we didn't do anything that we should do in this kind of game against this kind of opponent.

"We completely lost our offence, we didn't pass the ball well, we didn't attack and make the extra pass, or have energy offensively to create more problems for them, it was very static. This bad energy on offence saw us not very focused on defence.

"...We need to make some adjustments, but first mental adjustments, to understand how we want to play this type of team, against this type of defences, to get mentally ready for the game in Venice.

"In the end it was important to win, I think we deserve it, but the way the game goes, I'm disappointed because we didn't play the way we were meant to play."

Things will only get tougher for Karsiyaka in Italy, where Venezia have a perfect record at home.

Mike Green added 12 points for the home side, with DaJuan Summers and J'Covan Brown adding 11-a-piece.

Marquez Haynes was the high-man for Venezia, scoring 19 points, including the free throws that set the final score, whilst Hrvoje Peric and Melvin Ejim finished with 16 each.

Ejim was instrumental down the stretch in Venezia's come back, recording a big steal in the final minute and drawing a foul. He knocked down the first free throw, before getting the offensive rebound on his second for a big dunk and bringing the game to a two point margin.

Venezia held their only lead of the game early in the first quarter before Karsiyaka took control until the final horn. Pinar used an 11-4 run in the second period led by Summers to open up their biggest lead of the game, 38-23, with four minutes remaining in the first half. 

From there, the visitors responded, bringing it to 10 at halftime, and 8 heading into the final period, where they made their final push to reduce their workload next week in the second leg.