Eurosport - Thu, 03 Apr 23:38:00 2008
CSKA Moscow kept their Euroleague hopes alive beating Olympiacos 83-73 in Piraeus, Greece to send their quarter-final series to a decisive third match.
Olympiacos 73-83 CSKA Moscow
The 2006 European champions, stunned by Lynn Greer's buzzer-beating winner in Moscow on Tuesday, claimed an imposing victory in Thursday's second match.
Ramunas Siskauskas, Trajan Langdon and Matjaz Smodis combined for 12-for-15 shooting from the three-point line to bury the hosts, scoring 20, 17 and 18 points respectively.
Olympiacos looked to dominate the match early building a 12-point lead at the end of the first quarter, but the Russian champions stormed back in the second quarter to take a four-point edge into halftime and secured the victory easily from there.
The decisive third game will be played next week in the Russian capital.
Fenerbahce 65-86 Montepaschi Siena
Italian champions Montepaschi Siena became the first team to reach this year's Final Four surprising Fenerbahce by 21 points in Istanbul.
Montepaschi, who led throughout swept the best-of-three series thanks to a well-balanced shooting performance from Ksistof Lavrinovic, Bootsy Thornton and Terrell McIntyre.
Lavrinovic and Thornton each scored 18 with the Lithuanian shooting 4-for-4 from the three-point line, while McIntyre added 16.
A horrid 17 turnovers from the hosts also helped see Siena through to the prestigious Final Four for the third time this decade.
Barcelona 83-74 Maccabi Elite
Gianluca Basile led Barca to a decisive third game against Maccabi Tel Aviv beating the Israeli champions by 11 points in the Catalan capital.
The Italian scored a career-high 34 points, matching Luis Scola's record for the most points scored in a quarter-final game.
Pepe Sanchez and Roger Grimau added 11 points for the hosts, while Fran Vazquez scored 8 points and grabbed 10 rebounds.
The decisive third game will take place next Thursday at Nokia Arena in Tel Aviv.
Partizan Belgrade 76-55 Tau Ceramica
Hosts Partizan easily sent their best-of-three quarter-final with Tau Ceramica to a decider crushing the Spanish club by 21 points in the Serbian capital.
Partizan rushed out to a ten-point lead in the first quarter before putting the match away in the fourth outscoring the visitors 22-7.
Nikola Pekovic scored a game-leading 19 points for Partizan, while Novica Velickovic added 17 and Uros Tripkovic 11.
The third game will take place next Thursday in Vitoria, Spain.
Jeremy Stahl / Eurosport