The teams of Akademik Plovdiv and Levski play with a score of 32:32 in the last match of the fifth round of the NBL.
FIRST QUARTER:The match started rather slowly, and after the first three minutes of play there were as many violations as there were points in the match in Plovdiv – 0:3 in favor of Levski. Akademik finally scored his first points in the match after two successful free kicks by Gerald Liddell for 2:3. Tyler Creamer brought the first lead in the match to Plovdiv residents, and the interesting thing in the first minutes was that the defense of the home team was doing well with the protection of Alan Arnett and John Florvius – 4:3. Akademik’s streak reached eight points in a row, but it was interrupted by a basket by Dimitar Marincheshki and so the “blues” shortened the distance to one possession at 10:7 in favor of Yordan Yankov’s team. However, the game continued to develop fairly evenly, with Asen Velikov again putting Levski ahead at 11:12 towards the end of the first quarter. In the end, the people of Sofia kept their one-point asset after the first ten minutes at 16:17, thanks to a three-pointer by Mario Boyanov.SECOND QUARTER:A great start to the meeting was made by Boyanov, who was extremely aggressive at the beginning of the meeting and after scoring a three-pointer at the end of the first part, started the second with two successful breaks for 18:21 in favor of Levski. The tension seemed to still reign in the ranks of both teams, as their offensive performance continued to be shaky in the middle of the second half – 23:24 for the visitors from Sofia. The hosts looked solid in defense, and their most serious advantage was their aggressiveness and executed 12/15 penalty kicks from the line against 4/6 for Levski and a turnaround for the hosts after baskets by Krastomir Mihov and Justin McCall – 27:24. McCall came on strong off the Academic bench and thanks to him the team reached its biggest lead of the game so far at 32:26. However, with two quick attacks, Levski cut the gap to two points at 32:30 with less than two minutes remaining in the second period. The “Blues” ended the second half with a streak of six unanswered points after another good performance by Dimitar Marincheshki, who restored the scoreboard at 32:32. TITLE FIVE:ACADEMIC PLOVDIV: Nikolay Marinov, Jaylen Minet, Martin Marinov, Gerald Liddell, Tyler CreamerLEVSKY: Momchil Kadiev, Asen Velikov, Alan Arnett, Zlatin Georgiev, John Florvious
Levski occupies the fifth place in the provisional ranking of the NBL with a balance of 3-1, while Akademik is in the tenth position with an asset of 1-3. Plovdiv players broke the negative series of three consecutive losses with success over Shumen with 80:78, while the “blues” collected their first defeat of the season after 72:85 against CSKA last week.
