EuroCup London Lions victory over Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana 92-85
Ljubljana, Slovenia (January 31,2024) — The British side grabbed an important road victory in Slovenia.
GROUP A
FINAL SCORE Lions 92 /Cedevita 85
The London Lions took advantage of their quick playing style to defeat Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana 85-92 in a physical game, as Petar Bozic’s side stayed alive in the race for a top-two spot in Group A.
London turned the ball over 14 times to the hosts’ 13 but did not allow Cedevita to really use that in its favor, with a 17-13 advantage in points off turnovers for the home side.
More importantly, the Lions pushed the ball any chance they could get, resulting in a 9-23 cushion in fastbreak points. That prevented Cedevita from setting up its defense and funneling drives at Karlo Matkovic, who nevertheless ended up blocking 5 London
London shot 57.8% on two-pointers and connected on 42.3% of its shots from long range. Cedevita, for its part, hit just 45.7% on two-pointers and, like London, made 11 three-pointers but that came at a 33.3% clip.
The victory gave London a 12-5 record, good for third place in the group, while Cedevita finished the regular season winless at home in nine games and dropped to 1-16.
“Every game in the EuroCup is very competitive. They only have one win but that doesn’t speak to the skill and talent level that they have. They play good basketball. They’re tough to guard. They had a couple of streaks, but we stayed resilient,” said London guard Luke Nelson, who had 19 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists for a performance index rating of 28.
“Every game is important. We’re fighting for that second place. All we can do is win our games. And we did that.”
One major difference in the final three quarters was London doing a much better job controlling its defensive glass. In the first 10 minutes, Cedevita grabbed 10 offensive rebounds. The hosts had 2 offensive rebounds in the second quarter, 0 in the third and 3 in the fourth period.
Coach Bozic had to be happy about the last three quarters, especially because the British side ranked dead last in offensive rebounds allowed at 13.1 per game coming into the game.
“It was a very physical game. In the first quarter we couldn’t get a rebound. They had 10 offensive rebounds in the quarter. And at halftime we told our guys we had to take care of the rebounds. We took care of the rebounds, we knew it would be a physical game, a game we had to win,” said London assistant coach Robert Youngblood, who finished in charge after head coach Petar Bozic was ejected with two successive technicals midway through the third quarter.
