Arroyo steers Galatasaray into Euroleague Top 16

ByReuters

Published 18/12/2014 at 21:16 GMT

Galatasaray reached the second group stage of basketball's Euroleague with a 79-74 home win over Olympiakos Piraeus on Thursday with former NBA guard Carlos Arroyo holding his nerve in a tense finish to net a game-high 24 points.

Eurosport

Image credit: Eurosport

Galatasaray progressed at the expense of Lithuanian debutants Neptunas Klaipeda, who needed a win at already eliminated Valencia to advance but suffered a 103-65 drubbing by the Spanish side.

The last two Top 16 berths will be decided on Friday, when Nizhny Novgorod are at home to fellow Russian side Unics Kazan and 1999 champions Zalgiris Kaunas entertain Dinamo Sassari.

The 35-year old Arroyo, who played for several NBA teams, scored six points in the final minute to hold off an Olympiakos fightback.

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Galatasaray were playing the first of three home games behind closed doors after they were given a crowd ban for last month's violence in front of their Abdi Ikpeci arena in which a Red Star Belgrade fan was killed as rival supporters clashed.

"I want to congratulate my team and we are now looking forward to playing in the Top 16 where we will try to emulate least season's achievement of reaching the knockout stage," Galatasaray coach Ergin Ataman told Euroleague television.

"We will try to rebuild the team for the second group stage," he added, referring to the departure of several key players who left the club in recent weeks amid a difficult financial situation.

The Top 16 features two groups of eight teams.

Neptunas punched well above their weight throughout the preliminary group stage but produced their worst performance at crunch time, suffering a crushing defeat at Valencia as their trademark long-range shooting dried up.

The Spaniards, in contrast, nailed 13 of 25 shots from three-point range as forward Luke Harangody scored 20 points and Montenegrin centre Bojan Dubljevic added 19 for the hosts.

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