BRATISLAVA, April 14 (Xinhua) -- The first round of the SBL playoff quarterfinals on Wednesday produced entertaining matchups with both Bratislava and Svit capitalizing on the home-court advantage.
Inter Bratislava was maintaining a small lead throughout the match but had to fight in the final moments to regain it as BKM Lucenec rallied and grabbed the lead for a brief period.
Elsewhere, BC Prievidza's fabulous fourth period erased Iskra Svit's 15-point lead and, with a buzzer-beater, pushed the game into overtime, but Svit stayed focus and secured a close 110-107 victory.
With this season's record of five wins and two losses against BKM Lucenec, Inter Bratislava is the clear favorite in the best-of-three quarterfinal series.
In the first match of the series, Inter saw its fragile lead crumble in the final period, but a 13-0 streak in the final moments tipped the scales back in favor of the home team, winning 85-75 in the end under the leadership of the Lithuanian sniper Arnas Berucka who finished the night with 29 points and six rebounds.
Iskra Svit was also going into the quarterfinal series against BC Prievidza with a favorable 4-2 record, but Game 1 turned out far from one-sided. The home team put on a solid performance and dominated throughout the first three periods, starting the final one with a 15-point lead. But that's when things started to go wrong for Iskra.
Svit gradually saw its lead dwindle, and despite scoring a difficult shot in the last second that put the home team ahead 94-92 with 0.4 seconds left on the clock, Prievidza managed to push the game into OT with a hail-mary pass across the whole court that landed in the hands of the American center (and top scorer of the night with 29 points and nine rebounds) Grant Sitton who immediately shot it and sank a buzzer-beater from close range.
However, Prievidza did not manage to keep the momentum going and allowed Svit to grab the upper hand in the thrilling OT, winning 110-107 in the end. Enditem