We were guests of Fenerbahçe Beko in the second match of the Türkiye Sigorta Basketball Super League Play-off Semi-Finals and we won the game 92-90. We finished the first half of the match, which was played at Ülker Sports and Event Hall, 40-45 behind.
After this score, we brought the series to 1-1. The third match of the series will be played on Wednesday, June 7 at Sinan Erdem Sports Hall.
While our team started the game with five of them Micic, Larkin, Clyburn, M'Baye, and Pleiss starting five, our first basket came from Larkin. With Pleiss and M'Baye's points, the fourth minute was 6-10, while four points from Elijah brought the score to 10-14 in the sixth minute. After M'Baye's three-pointer and Clyburn's field goal, the score was 15-21 in the ninth minute, and in the last part of the quarter, we got a one-hit free throw with Larkin, and we were behind 16-25 in the first 10 minutes of the game. We started the second period with Larkin and Clyburn's points and the 12th minute was entered with a score of 20-27. After the 14th minute was passed with a score of 23-29 with the hit of Pleiss, coach Ergin Ataman took a time-out when the score was 23-34 in the next minute. After Larkin's three-pointer at the time-out, Clyburn scored seven points in a row and we made the score 33-43 in the 18th minute. Larkin, who was stopped by a foul during the three-point shooting, scored four points in an attack, and after Clyburn's three points, we finished the first half of the game behind 40-45.
We started the second half with Clyburn's five points and made the score 45-48 in the 22nd minute. After Micic's layup, while the opposing team was putting the ball into the throw-in, Larkin found the layup and reduced the lead to two points in the 23rd minute: 49-51. Balancing the score with Furkan's dunk, our team found another stylish dunk by Clyburn, so we took the lead at 24:30 and the opposing team's timeout came: 53-51. When the score came to 53-55 in the 26th minute on the return from the time-out, this time Ergin Ataman took a time-out. After the timeout, Larkin hit the for the tie again: 55-55. We scored with Pleiss and Elijah in the last minutes of the period and we were leading 65-61 in the last 10 minutes of the game. We started the final period with the points of Pleiss and Elijah and brought the score to 77-64 in the 34th minute. Our 78th point came with Larkin's only hit from the foul line and we were leading 78-69 in the last 4:30 minutes of the game. After Furkan's stylish dunk, Clyburn scored two three-pointers in a row and we were leading 86-79 in the last minute of the game. Clyburn had two more three-pointers in the last 20 seconds of the game and we got the game 92-90.