“VEF Riga” lost to “Benfica” with 76:89 (27:25, 11:17, 27:29, 11:18).
Terrell Carter scored the first points of the game with a hook shot, giving the visitors a 2-0 lead. However, the home team responded with two 2-pointers by Nasir Brooks and Art Ate and a long shot by Krister Zorik to make it 7-2 and lead throughout the first quarter. The biggest advantage (24:15) was achieved in the eighth minute after a three-point shot by Jamar Abrams.
“Vefieši” kept a small lead until the 17th minute, when Mike Cirbess tied the score at 34:34 with a two-point shot.
The visitors played the end of the half better, after Cirbes’ two-point shot 31 seconds before the break, “Benfica” achieved the biggest lead of the game – 42:38.
“VEF Rīga” regained the lead – 43:42 with a long shot by Māras Gulbja and two points scored by Ates, and in the continuation the reins of control came to the disposal of both teams several times. However, even after the third quarter, the Lisbon club maintained a 71-65 lead, which for the first time achieved a six-point advantage in the game with Aaron Broussard’s long shot three seconds before the break.
In the 32nd minute, the guests achieved the biggest advantage in the game – 76:65, with two accurate free throws by Cirbes.
The home team failed to fight back.
In the Riga team, Brooks collected 20 points, seven rebounds and five fouls. Ate and Zorik scored 14 points each, who had a “double-double” with ten assists, as well as seven errors. Gulbis collected ten points and five rebounds, while Daniel Hamilton had nine points and eight rebounds.
For the guests, five players reached the ten point mark. Tony Douglas was the top scorer with 17 points and seven assists. Ivan Almeida scored 16 points, Broussard scored 15 points and five assists, Betinho Gomes scored 12 points and six rebounds, and Cirbes scored ten points.
The home team fought better for the rebounds (39:29), distributed more assists (24:19), but made more mistakes (20:8) and intercepted the ball less (5:15).
In another match of Group F, the Spanish team “Baxi” of Manreza, represented by March Steinberg, beat the French club CSB Limoges 76:73 (16:22, 19:16, 16:16, 25:19).
Steinberg did not score in four minutes and 40 seconds on the court, not making the only three-point shot. He also had two rebounds, a personal best, a team-worst +/- (-8) and an efficiency rating of 1 in the game.
Jerich Harding was the top scorer for the guests with 16 points, while Nicholas Lang stood out for the hosts with 19 points.
Riga’s place in the main tournament was already guaranteed, but “Benfica” won in the qualification “Golden Eagle Ylli” from Kosovo, “Keravnos” from Nicosia from Cyprus and “Brose” from Bamberg from Germany.
“Benfica” became the champion of Portugal last season and qualified for the main tournament of the FIBA Champions League for the first time this season.
Last Friday, “VEF Rīga” played the first match of the Latvian-Estonian Basketball League, losing to “Liepājas” basketball players with 93:98. On the other hand, “Benfica” started the season with a failure in the Portuguese Super Cup, losing 84:89 to “Sporting” Lisbon, but then won a convincing victory over “Lusitania” with 111:85 in the first match of the local championship.
In the FIBA Champions League, Jānis Bērzisna’s “Legia” Warsaw, Marek Meyer’s “Jerusalem Hapoel” and Artūras Strautiņš’s Reggio Emilia “UnaHotels” are also competing, but Werner Koch Hertogenbosch’s “Heroes Den Bosch” did not pass the second round of qualification, losing to Malaga “Unicaja” with a score of 58 :114.
The format of the competition remains unchanged – 32 teams compete in eight groups of four units. The winners of the groups immediately enter the round of 16, while the second and third place winners will compete in the “play-in” series in January 2023.
In the quarter-finals, the teams will play duels until two wins in April, and the season will end with the “Final Four” tournament in May.
This season, the team led by Jānis Gailīš is applying for the FIBA Champions League: Džamārs Abrams, Artis Ate, Rihards Berkold, Roberts Bērziņš, Gary Blake, Nasir Brooks, Raivo Butirin, Ilya Gromov, Māris Gulbis, Daniel Hamilton, Emil Krūmiņš, Anrij Miška, Pēteris Pinnis, Kristers Zorik and Vitaly Zotov.
“VEF Rīga” team is participating in this competition for the fourth season, having reached the second stage of the FIBA Champions League main tournament in the 2020/2021 season, and the “play-in” stage of the tournament last season.
The Spanish club “Lenovo” of Tenerife won the final four tournament held in the Spanish city of Bilbao in May.
The sixth season of the tournament was played in 2021/2022. In the first years, the basketball players of “Lenovo” from Tenerife, “AEK” from Athens, “Segafredo Virtus” from Bologna and twice in a row – from “San Pablo” from Burgos were crowned champions.
