ISTANBUL
Anadolu Efes will host their rivals Fenerbahce Beko for their first derby in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague on Friday.
The two Turkish basketball sides to ever win the EuroLeague title will meet in a Round 5 clash at 1730GMT at Istanbul’s Sinan Erdem Sports Hall.
Back-to-back EuroLeague winner Efes are currently ranked eighth with two wins and two defeats, as they won the Round 4 game 78-74 against ALBA Berlin.
Last week, Fenerbahce tasted a 79-77 win over Valencia Basket to jump to the top of the standings.
Meanwhile, the Yellow-Canaries won all four EuroLeague matches, including against Bayern Munich, Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv, and LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne.
Out of the 18 EuroLeague clashes between the two Istanbul teams, Fenerbahce won 11 compared to Anadolu Efes’ seven.
For the first time in the Istanbul derby, fans will witness a matchup between two of Europe’s best point guards in the last decade, Efes’ Vasilije Micic and Fenerbahce’s Nick Calathes.
Calathes is the all-time EuroLeague leader in assists with 1,740, and the only qualifying player in competition history to average 6.1 assists for a career.
Micic has the 10th-best total of 964 assists for his career – an eighth-best 4.8 average.
Round 5 fixtures
Thursday:
AS Monaco – Olympiacos Piraeus
Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv – Panathinaikos Athens
Valencia Basket – ALBA Berlin
Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade – Zalgiris Kaunas
Real Madrid – Virtus Segafredo Bologna
Friday:
Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade – Bayern Munich
Anadolu Efes – Fenerbahce Beko
LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne – Cazoo Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz
FC Barcelona – EA7 Emporio Armani Milan
