Second dramatic win in a row for Kumanovo

KK Kumanovo 2009 recorded second straight dramatic win in group C of the Second Stage in EUROHOLD Balkan League. The Macedonians visited KK Mornar in Bar and won 88-86 after a very hard fought and interesting game. They won the same way last week after beating Craiova by 2 points at home. After this result Kumanovo now has 2 wins and 2 losses and is second in the group while Mornar is last with 1-3 record.

Both teams started difficult and didn′t score much in the first minutes. The visitors managed to step up a gear and made a 16-4 run which put them up by 14 points. Then though Mornar finished the quarter on 7-1 run and cut the deficit. In the first few minutes of the second quarter the hosts played very good defense and that led to 8 points in a row which tied the score. Kumanovo however responded quickly and in just over two minutes managed to pull away by 10 points. In the final five minutes of the first half the visitors kept their good lead and were up by 11 at the break.

In the first minutes of the second half Kumanovo continued to have a good lead as in a short span Mornar managed to make 11-2 run and cut the deficit to only 2. Shortly after that the hosts took the lead on Ivan Jelenic triple  and by the team the quarter finished Mornar was up by 5. The last started with four points for the visitors but after that the hosts responded with 8-0 to go up by 9 points. Kumanovo however continued to push and with Vukasin Mandic three-pointer tied the score with 2.17 to play. In the next offense Mornar missed as after that Lukovic was fouled and made both free throws to put his team up by 2. Then both teams missed a few time and with 43 seconds to go Mornar made a mistake but the visitors didn′t take advantage and also made one. That gave Mornar the ball with 29 seconds to play but the hosts missed twice from the three-point line and in the last second Lukovic blocked Coleman′s attempt.

The hosts took full advantage of the 24 turnovers the visitors made and were 25-10 in points off turnovers. However the visitors made one triple more (11 of 25 to 10 of 32 for Mornar) and were 17 of 25 from the free throw line compared to 14 of 17 for the home team.

Uros Lukovic was dominant under the basket and finished with 26 points and 13 rebounds for the winners as Aleksandar Kostoski added 18 points and 6 assists.

For the home team Nikola Korac finished with 25 points and 7 assists while Ivan Jelenic added 18 points.

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FULL STATS FROM THE GAME KK MORNAR - KK KUMANOVO 2009