EUROLEAGUE - Turkish giants Efes fight back to win

Standings

ISTANBUL (Euroleague) - Efes Pilsen clawed back an 11-point deficit in the fourth quarter at home to stun Le Mans 66-63 in the Euroleague.

Drew Nicholas, who has been reunited with his former Benetton Treviso coach David Blatt this season, buried five of eight (62.5%) shots from the arc on his way to 21 points.

Even though his team won for the second time in four Euroleague games, Blatt bemoaned his team's struggles on offense after they shot just 38.8% (26 of 67) from the floor, including eight of 27 (29.6%) from long range.

"We just can't get the ball to go in," said Blatt.

"So bad shooting percentage is hurting us. I hope that we can relax a little bit in offense and I believe we will.

"When our shots start falling like they did in the fourth quarter, we will look a lot different in offense."

Le Mans have lost all four of their games in the competition so far.

In other games, Zalgiris Kaunas beat Union Olimpija 91-72 in Lithuania and Unicaja Malaga thrashed Maccabi Tel Aviv in Spain, 93-70.    

Tau Ceramica (3-1) thumped Montepaschi Siena (2-2) 76-61 and Lottomatica Roma (1-3) prevailed in a battle of winless teams against Brose Baskets (0-4) 81-57.

Defending champions Panathinaikos remained undefeated at 4-0 with a 76-66 triumph over Barcelona (2-2) 76-66.    

Meanwhile, Tomas Van den Spiegel has been voted the competition's most valuable player for week four after leading Prokom Trefl to an 87-75 victory at Virtus Bologna on Wednesday.

Van den Spiegel, a key reserve in the CSKA side that won the Euroleague two seasons ago and finished runners-up to Panathinaikos earlier this year, poured in 27 points on eight of 11 shooting inside the arc and also made all 11 of his free throws.

Van den Spiegel, who once played in Italy with Montepaschi Siena and Lottomatica Roma, also had 14 rebounds, three steals and a block.

FIBA