Zalgiris has a scoring night, but loses in Madrid 17

Real Madrid won the fast-paced high-scoring affair against Zalgiris Kaunas 95-82 on Friday night.

Guerschon Yabusele paced Real with 15 points and 6 rebounds. Sergio Llull scored 13, Thomas Heurtel had 12 points and 5 assists, and Vincent Poirier also scored 12. Rudy Fernandez, Adam Hanga and Walter Tavares scored 10 points apiece.

Tyler Cavanaugh scored 14 for Zalgiris, while Lukas Lekavicius netted 12 points and dished 10 assists. Niels Giffey also scored 12, and Marek Blazevic had 10 points in the losing effort.

Real opened the game with an 8-0 run taking the ball inside through Tavares and Yabusele. Zalgiris needed more than 3 minutes to score, but a pair of baskets from Blazevic and a triple from Zoran Dragic cut it to 10-9. Tavares dunked to keep Real with the lead, and Hanga beat the shot-clock with a three-pointer to spark a 6-0 run that put Real up 20-11 after 10 minutes.

Arturas Milaknis and Edgaras Ulanovas hit back-to-back triples early in the second quarter, and a triple by Tai Webster cut it to 24-20. But Fernandez hit a pair of tough triples to extend the margin back to 32-24, before more triples rained, one apiece from Giffey and Dragic for the visitors, while Llull sunk a pair for the hosts. A dunk-plus foul from Tristan Vukcevic helped open 47-32, but Lekavicius scored 8 unanswered points. A triple from Cavanaugh also helped Zalgiris, and a buzzer-beating runner from Janis Strelnieks saw the visitors cut it to 51-45 at halftime.

Alberto Abalde and Heurtel got Real off on the right foot in the third quarter, with the latter’s three-point play giving Real 60-49. But Lekavicius had one of his floaters and fed Blazevic for another one, before Webster banked a triple to make it 62-56. Heurtel and Milaknis traded triples, before Giffey and Cavanaugh knocked down back-to-back from long range, the visitors’ 11th and 12th triples, to cut it to 67-65. Yabusele and Tavares answered with a dunk apiece, making sure Real stayed in front, and it was 75-70 after 30 minutes.

Giffey’s jumper to open the fourth quarter cut the deficit to just 3 points, but a dunk from Hanga fueled a 6-0 run to give the hosts some breathing room. Cavanaugh hit a three-pointer at the buzzer, but Llull nailed a transition three to open 86-77 with 5:22 to go. Gifey’s jumper and a triple from Strelnieks gave the visitors hope, but Hanga also nailed one from downtown and Fernandez stole the ball from Lekavicius and went on a fast break for a layup to make it a 93-80 margin, icing the game.