Darussafaka Tefken Istanbul 71-79 Barça Lassa: First road win in Europe

Barça Lassa have won their first road game of the Euroleague season at the Volkswagen Arena, beating Darussafaka Tefken Istanbul 71-79. Successful handling of the final minutes was the key to a game that saw Tomic (17), Singleton (18) and Heurtel (13) lead the points, with Michael Erik (17) proving to be the biggest handful to deal with.

Barça Lassa flew off the stops to lead 3-15, defending outstandingly, and it was some time before we witnessed any reaction from the Turks. But when Ahmet Caki found his game, the difference slowly decreased and the first period ended 18-23.

Heurtel, Ribas and Singleton all banged in threes early in the second, and yet more solid defending put Barça’s lead back into double figures, and despite a strong reaction from Darussafaka, there was still ten in it at the turnaround (37-47).

All that good work was undone when the home side went 9-0 straight after the break. Not long after they were leading by five, and totally smashed the third period 24-11. Suddenly things weren’t going quite as well as they had looked.

Barça got back on level terms at 64-64, and from then it was defensive and offensive rebounds that held the key – or better said, the Catalans’ dominance of both. They edge into the lead and expertly maintained it to march on towards the first European win away from the Palau Blaugrana in the 2018/19 season.