The winner of the Bulgarian Cup Cherno more Ticha defeated the vice-champion Balkan with 86:78 (19:20, 25:19, 10:16, 32:23) as the host in the "Congress" hall in the Palace of Culture and Sports in Varna in the third match of the semi-final playoff between the two teams in the National Basketball League for Men (NBL) and took the lead with 2:1 victories, BTA reported.
The game is played to three wins out of five possible matches. The fourth match is scheduled for Thursday (May 15) again in Varna, and if a fifth match is played, it will be held in Botevgrad.
The hosts had a slight advantage in the opening minutes, but Balkan secured a point lead - 20:19 at the end of the first quarter. The guests increased their lead to 4 points before Cherno more Ticha regained the initiative midway through the second half and led 44:39 at the break.
Botevgrad managed to briefly equalize after the break at 44:44, but Cherno more Ticha again came out ahead in the score and pulled ahead by 7 points - 52:45 midway through the third period. By the end of the half, however, the hosts scored only 2 more points and allowed Botevgrad to turn the game around and take a 1-55:54 lead after a three-pointer by Nikolay Grozev before the last 10 minutes.
They started evenly and with an exchange of leads, but a good run for Cherno more Ticha allowed the team from Varna to record its biggest lead of the match - 11 points at 79:68 a little more than a minute before the end of the match.
The hosts had superiority in the basket, scoring twice as many points as the opponent and neutralizing most of the three-pointers for the basketball players from Balkan.
Nikolay Stoyanov was the most productive for the winners with 18 points and 4 rebounds, while Ivan Spirov and Rodney Purvis each scored 16 points.
Curtis Jones finished with 19 points, 7 rebounds and 3 assists for Balkan, while Lamont Turner and Nikolay Grozev each scored 12 points.