Great second half was enough for Mures to keep their chances alive

           BC Mures maintained chances to play on the ¼ finals, as Csaba Deri’s team won against the young team of Balkan Botevgrad 79:95 in Sports Complex Pravets, after a superb second half. The hosts from Bulgaria impressed almost everybody with their great team spirit  in the opening game of round 8 of EUROHOLD Balkan League, but Balkan managed to be equal to their opponents only in the first half. Once again this season, the team from Botevgrad showed that in the club are working hard in the juniors area, as Balkan’s head coach put in the starting line-up almost unexperienced players – Krum Doychinov, Tsvetelin Ivanov, Dimitar Filipov, Ivailo Vuchkov and Emil Binev. Both sides played without some of their best players – Yordan Bozov was undergoing of a leg surgery, while Stanimir Marinov, Dwayne Morton and Lyubomir Lilov are also injured and missed the game for the hosts, while Mures’s best rebounder Jason Forte stayed on the bench, as the Romanians have 4 non-european players in their roster and one of them need to rest every game,. The club also released the Lithuanian forward Gytis Sirutavicius.   

             This is Mures’s first victory as a guest, as they lost all their road games until now. They stayed 4th in group B with a balance of 3-4, and still have a minor chance for the third place. Balkan are on the bottom 1-6 record.
 
              The game started off with a basket and a foul from Krum Doychinov, followed by lay-up from Liviu Dimitru. After the first minutes, it became cleared that the battle under the basket is going to be very hard, as Aleksandar Mladenovic and Krum Doychinov are leading their teams in the first period. BC Mures’s Serbian
forward couldn’t be so effectual in defence, as he made 3 personal fouls in only 8 minutes. This trouble allowed to Balkan a comfortable 9 point lead in the 13^th  minute. Tsvetelin Ivanov made 2 three-pointers in this period, Georgi Davidov was stable on his position, while Csaba Deri’s players are very disoriented in the first 20
minutes. The break come to 49:42 for Balkan .
 
            In the begining of the second half, Mures took the game in their hands and
managed to decrease their trail and even take the lead. The hosts made a lot of
turnovers in this period, probably because Petar Klechkov used only 6 players
almost whole game. After 16:32, Mures was ahead 9 points after 30 minutes on
the court – 65:74.
 
            In the decisive fourth period, Balkan made a lot of attempts to decrease their trail, but with a great offence play and a strong defence, Mures kept their lead until the end and even won the game in a bigger way, as finally the final score was 79:95 in order to keep Mures chances for the ¼ finals alive.