Our Beşiktaş Cola Turka Men’s Basketball took on city rival Galatasaray Cafe Crown at Ayhan Şahenk Sports Hall in the 23rd week of Beko Basketball League and raced to an easy 83-66 derby victory.

The Black and Whites came out of the gate fast and built a sizeable lead early on. But Galatasaray Cafe Crown responded with a number of free throws to trim the deficit and remained within striking distance throughout the entire quarter. Riding the hot hand of Kaya Peker, Beşiktaş Cola Turka held a slight 4-point advantage with a minute remaining, only to see Tufan come back and hit a string of jumpers to tie the score at 18-18 going into second quarter.
Beşiktaş Cola Turka brought on Nicevic and Shumpert in the second and sought to regain its lost momentum by playing aggressive defense. This tactic paid off, as Galatasaray went scoreless for three minutes into the quarter. But a series of unforced turnovers prevented the Black and Whites from pulling away from their hosts. Capitalizing on solid free throw shooting, the yellow and red team clawed its way back into the game and leveled the score at 26-26 midway through the quarter. From that point on, teams traded baskets with the lead changing hands several times, but Beşiktaş Cola Turka managed to cling to a narrow 38-36 lead heading to the locker room at the half.
The Black and Whites came out firing in the third and quickly stretched their margin to 9 points on back-to-back buckets made from inside and out. Galatasaray Cafe Crown tried to rally back but could come no closer that 4 points. Then the duo of Dalmau and Shumpert stepped up and started hitting shots from all over the court to give their team a 54-44 lead at the halfway mark. Especially, the driving lay-ups by Dalmau totally destroyed the host team’s confidence and broke the game wide-open. Encountering little resistance, the Black and Whites dominated the game rest of way and closed out the quarter on late run to build a 61-45 cushion at the end.
While Beşiktaş Cola Turka simply stood and watched in the early fourth, motivated by fans backing, Galatasaray Cafe Crown made one last-ditch effort to get back into the game and began chipping away at the deficit. But refusing to get caught, our Black and Whites weathered the storm quickly and regained total control with some late game heroics from Sinan Güler and Shumpert to claim a comfortable 83-66 derby win over their traditional city rivals.