Zagreb Scrape Narrow Home Win Over Keravnos

Krunoslav Simon and Damir Mulaomerovic combined to hit six free-throws in the final 87 seconds to help KK Zagreb hold on and defeat Keravnos in the EuroChallenge.

Zagreb, beaten at BC Kyiv last week, got a game-high 19 points from Simon and 14 from center Ante Tomic in a 79-73 victory.

The Croatian club went in front for good at 38-37 early in the second half following a jump shot from Tomic.

Keravnos and their Puerto Rico international Carmelo Lee wouldn't allow them to pull away, though.

A Lee jumper reduced the arrears to 70-68 with 2:46 remaining only for Mulaomerovic to reply with a jump shot at the other end to restore the four-point cushion.

Lee, who had 18 points, answered with a three-ball to cut the Cypriot team's deficit to 72-71 with 1:45 left to play.

Simon and Mulaomerovic each hit two free-throws to take the advantage to 76-71.

After Aleksandar Damjanovic buried two shots from the charity stripe for Keravnos to close the gap to 76-73, Simon sealed the win with two more free-throws of his own for Zagreb.

Simon also pulled down a game-high nine rebounds.

Zagreb finished the contest 23 of 27 from the stripe and also hit six of 16 from long range.

Keravnos were four of 20 from behind the arc and 15 of 20 at the free-throw line.

Quotes KK Zagreb vs. Keravnos

Bryant Smith, Keravnos player:
"We played strong in the first half but sometimes you lose sometimes you win. It is still early in the season and we feel we are a good team and we are going to continue to build.

Andrej Štimac, Zagreb player:
The only good thing in this game is that we have won, luckily we managed not to lose regardless we played poorly. We played slowly that could have been because of the last two lost games and it was important to break the mental block. We are aware we did not play well today we can be better, this time it was only important to win.

Adi Azoulay, Keravnos head coach:
We had a good chance against KK Zagreb tonight we did a good job opening the game playing hard in defence. In the follow up Simon played excellently and led his team to win. We know Zagreb is a good team and we go home feeling we could have done better.

Denis Bajramović, Zagreb head coach:
Keravnos has come in the right moment to help us break the losing series what we did. I have to be satisfied with the victory but not with the game itself. It is not bad to win when you don't play well. During the day we have had a lot of medical problems with Dijan and Žorić who had high temperature and could not join the team , as well as Prkačin and Mulaomerović who did not feel well either. Considering all this, the victory is the only thing that matters.