Turkish Airlines EuroLeague: Efes stays hot with another dominant win

Another week, another round (12) in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague and after the dust settled on Friday night, Anadolu Efes Istanbul stay on top of the league standings with a 10-2 record.

Still one game behind them are the deadly Spanish rival duo of FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. Sitting in fourth through sixth places with identical 8-4 records are Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv, CSKA Moscow and Panathinaikos Athens. Lastly, AX Armani Exchange Milan and Khimki Moscow Region round out the current top-8 with 7-5 and 6-6 records, respectively.

CSKA Moscow edged out Zalgiris Kaunas 85-83 on the combined efforts of Mike James and Janis Strelnieks, who chipped in 19 and 18 points, respectively.

Meanwhile, Maccabi Fox Tel Aviv totally destroyed a struggling FC Bayern Muenchen 77-55.

Interestingly and more importantly a narrative-rich derby matchup between bitter Greek rivals Olympiacos and Panathinaikos saw Panathinaikos emerge victorious thanks to the 41-point explosion by Tyrese Rice. He knocked down 8-of-16 treys to cap off an epic performance for the books.

The EuroLeague leaders Anadolu Efes made short work of Kirolbet Baskonia Vitoria 77-102. Vitoria was dependent on the performance of three of their players. Tornike Shengalia led the way with 20 points, while Shavon Shields and Nik Stauskas chipped in 16 points each. Unfortunately, the other players could not get into the flow of the offense.

Conversely, Efes got a well-rounded team effort from its roster with six players contributing to the win with double-digit scoring, led by the 24 points of the still-scorching Shane Larkin, who was coming off a career performance last week.