Zvezda beats Efes 77:72 at Belgrade Arena — first EuroLeague win

Crvena Zvezda’s basketball players recorded their first win of the EuroLeague season on Thursday evening at Belgrade Arena, beating Turkey’s Efes 77:72 in the third round of Europe’s elite competition, as the Serbian newspaper Danas reports.

The game was decided in the final minutes, in a dramatic finish in which Tyson Carter became the hero of the red-and-whites — according to Danas, Carter made several mistakes during the game, but in the decisive moments he carried the team on his back and secured the triumph. The win comes after two straight losses for Zvezda at the start of the European season — 77:83 to Žalgiris and 81:80 to Hapoel Tel Aviv, both in Belgrade.

The evening was overshadowed by a serious incident: Efes star Mike James of the United States, the top scorer in EuroLeague history, suffered a serious injury two and a half minutes before the end of the third quarter and left the court on a stretcher, as Danas also reports. Everyone in the arena stood in silence until James was carried out.

For Zvezda, the triumph over an opponent like Efes is a morale boost ahead of the rest of the season. Belgrade’s Partizan also competes in the elite European competition and plays in Munich against Bayern on Friday, in the second round of the double week.