Cibona fall to Slovan at Dražen Petrović Hall after second-half turnaround

Cibona lost 82-90 to ABA League debutants Slovan Bratislava at Dražen Petrović Hall on Monday, 12 October, in front of around 1,000 spectators, in Round 3 of Group A of the AdmiralBet ABA League. In their first season in the regional competition, Slovan thus claimed the first win in their ABA League history, while Cibona suffered their second straight loss in the competition.

The hosts made the better start and led for most of the first quarter. Their biggest lead was five points at 10-5, and they won the opening period 23-18 thanks to Mazalin and McGill. In the second quarter Cibona led by as many as ten (30-20), but Slovan answered with a 12-2 run to take the lead at 34-32. The first half nevertheless went the Wolves’ way (47-40), with Mazalin (14 points) leading Cibona and Buchanan (15) leading Slovan.

Cibona pulled away to 49-43 at the start of the second half, but the visitors came back and twice turned the game around (54-55, 62-65), and Cibona went into the final period leading 68-64. In the fourth quarter Slovan took control and decided the game, with threes from Bluiett (76-85) and Drežnjak (78-90) proving the key moments, and won by eight points. Mazalin and McGill were Cibona’s most effective players, while Ford, Buchanan and Bluiett led Slovan to victory. Croatian international Mateo Drežnjak, who spent two years at Cibona, finished with eight points, as did Bačvić.

“It was a somewhat bizarre game. From our side, I think two factors disrupted our rhythm. The first was the free throws and how to deal with them in the following possessions. The second was a lack of concentration on switches, where we didn’t communicate in time, even though we knew we were facing a team that lives and dies by the three-point shot. It’s a rare, well-built shooting team with very good range at positions one through four, and that shooting percentage is high-level, similar to what we had against Galatasaray. In today’s basketball, if you can’t defend the three-pointer in a certain way, you get punished. We were punished, and I think we didn’t have good shot selection. Congratulations to Slovan on the win; we have a lot to analyse and then move on,” said Cibona head coach Ivan Rudež.

“This is Slovan’s first historic win, but a deserved one, because we played with great confidence in the second half. The players felt it, and we’re a team that will definitely shoot threes, and when we hit them we’re very uncomfortable to play against. In the first half, several times we rushed difficult shots over the hand and missed them, and it looked like we were playing a different kind of basketball. In the second half we changed the defence a little and gave up 35 points to an excellent Cibona. I think we deserved to win, and I wish Cibona all the best for the rest of the season,” said Slovan head coach Dejan Jakara.

Cibona have another challenge already on Wednesday, 14 October, in Round 4 of the SuperSport Premijer League, where they face Depolink Škrljevo at Sportska dvorana Kostrena, tip-off at 19:30.