Rila athlete defeated Chernomorets 80:78 in a match of the 23rd round, played at “Arena Samokov”.
The two teams produced a dramatic game full of twists and turns, but in the final chords, Michaelin Scott became the savior and ensured that the Sharks’ successful run of four consecutive victories in the elite was stopped.
Thus, the scenario from the end of December was repeated again, when the team from Samokov also won by only 2 points.
“In the last four minutes of the second half, we stopped playing. We let them run us 12-0. We start the third part, I told them in the dressing room that the most important thing now is for the difference to become double digits, not to decrease, and what happened – 8:3.
This is seven minutes in which they make us a series of 20:3. This is unacceptable! When you play as a guest of the second best team in Bulgaria, you have no right to treat the game like that. The good thing is that out of the four losses we have, three are by 2 points. Sooner or later these games will come in our favor and I’m almost convinced that it will happen at the right time.
The match was going smoothly. We played better in the first 15 minutes, then we played a very bad 7 where we let them come back. From then on we played basket for basket. For the second game in a row in this hall, we have the ball in our hands with a chance to win. Travis failed to score twice, the third time he will.
About wrestling, I’m going to put rubber bands on the basket in the gym, some of them aren’t aware yet, but I’ve done it before. By putting four rubber bands in the ring, I will show them how to fight. Niki Georgiev has 0 rebounds, Sean Smith has 1 in the second half, this is frivolous and unprofessional of them.
It is not possible, when you are the best team in Bulgaria and you lead in tackles, that they take nearly 20 tackles from you in attack, this is unacceptable, but now I will remind them of an old method, as I became a very good tackler when I was a player. I will remind them how a basketball player should fight.
They didn’t dominate us or beat us by 20. We won the first game by 9 in our hall, twice we lost by 2 in Samokov. Hristo Zahariev didn’t play, Tony Trosha didn’t play, and they played the second game with a full squad against us, we weren’t in the first either.
But the wheel turns and sooner or later that chance will fall on our side, I’m not worried. The loss is not dramatic, we are still first in the league. From now on we want to take our games at home and 2-3 away,” Vasil Evtimov commented on the loss.
Chris Minkov returned for the “skiers” after a long absence.
In this way, Riletso has 18 wins and 5 losses on his account, returning to the second place in the provisional ranking, and Vasil Yevtimov’s boys are still out of reach at the top with 19 wins and 4 defeats.
Travis McConico recorded 23 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists for Chernomorets. Alex Wandier has 16 points, Andrey Ivanov finished with 14 and 5 rebounds, Sean Smith finished with 10 and 7 rebounds.
On March 6 (Wednesday), Rilski will host CSKA, and Chernomorets will visit Chernomore Ticha on the same day.
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