Adriatic League – Red Star finishes strong

Whether or not Crvena Zvezda Telekom Beograd will eventually come away with the Adriatic League title is still yet to be determined. They are, however, on the right track. They recently clinched the Adriatic League’s regular season title. In this week’s action two games were of clear importance as they represented possible final four action. On March 30 Red Star handily swept their regular season series vs. KK Cibona via a 67-76 win and yesterday BC Partizan took down KK Cedevita, 77-68. Two Serbian teams and two Croatian teams will be doing battle to achieve the highly coveted slots in the finals as the finalists will get to see action in the Euroleague next season.

It was a clear and decisive victory for the visiting Red Star team, which came back in the second half of the game after being down by eight points. They pulled within six after the third and surged ahead in the final frame thanks to an aggressive rally down the stretch.

Red Star was led by starter DeMarcus Nelson who finished the game with 18 points. Charles Jenkins chipped in 14 points off the bench, while Boban Marjanovic added 12 points and seven rebounds.

Dario Saric’s double-double performance was not enough to keep Cibona’s head above water when Nelson and company turned up the offense. Saric ended the night with 15 points, 13 rebounds and two steals to his name. Marco Jagodic Kuridza was the only other player from Cibona to manage to hit double figures with 13 points.

The Partizan-Cedevita game was an opposite side of the coin compared to previous encounter. Partizan managed to steadily amass a stable lead from the first three quarters. Cedevita made strong final push in final period, but it was a case of being too little, too late and they ended up falling by nine to the host team. Partizan beat them down through superior rebounding and ball distribution.

Partizan got most of its players involved from the get go as five of them managed to score in double figures. Davis Bertans led the squad with 14 points.

Jusuf Nurkic was arguably the lone bright spot coming out of Cedevita’s bench. He ended up leading his team with 15 points, but he did not get much support from the rest of the reserves. Starters Nolan Smith and Luka Babic contributed 13 points apiece, while Miro Bilan added 12.