BC NN Demolish Atomerömü

Michal Ignerski led the charge for BC NN as the Russian side took revenge for their week 1 setback

BC NN avenged their season-opening setback in the EuroChallenge at Atomerömü SE in grand fashion on Tuesday.

Michal Ignerski had 22 points and Nemanja Protic 20 as the Nizhny Novgorod club romped to a 96-51 triumph.

The Russian club stamped its authority on the game from the off, racing into a 12-2 lead six minutes into the contest.

Ignerski had five of the team's first six points before Protic poured in six in a row.

Zoran Lukic's side stretched the advantage to 23-10 by the end of the first quarter.

The visitors did give themselves a chance by scoring six straight points at the start of the second quarter, capped by a Ferdinánd Morgen jump shot.

But BC NN then took a firm grip on proceedings with a 14-1 run.

Ivan Paunic buried a couple of three-balls in that spurt as the hosts opened up a 37-17 lead late in the second quarter.

A pair of Protic free-throws took his points haul to eight at the half-time and gave the home side a 44-20 lead.

BC NN blew the Hungarian outfit away in the second half to even their record at 2-2 in Group D.

Atomerömü dropped to 1-3 with the loss.

Very little went right for the losing side in this contest with Atomerömü making just 13 of 34 inside the arc, four of 15 beyond it and 13 of 27 at the stripe.

BC NN had 23 assists to just seven for their opponents.

Atomerömü also turned the ball over 21 times to just six for the Russian club.

They played without their point guard, Lorenzo Williams, who was averaging 14 points and had 28 in last week's game against Khimik.

Quotes BC NN vs. Atomerömü SE

Zoran Lukic, head coach BC NN:
"This game was really important from the psychological point of view. Though, we missed a lot of free throws due to the excitement and nervousness. We wanted to win and we deserved to win. The difference on the scoreboard confirms it."

Peter Völgyi, head coach BC Atomeromu:
"It's really hard to say anything about game like this. We totally lost the beginning of the game. We lack one of our key-players, Williams, who is injured. Tonight we played really bad; we collapsed and made a lot of mistakes. Congratulations to Nizhny Novgorod, they fought until the end and we tried to give a battle."

Nemanja Protic, BC NN player:
"This was a very important win for us. We lost a lot of games. We played aggressively all 40 minutes and the opponents failed off. Now we've got 7 days to prepare for the next game. I think that's great. Recently we only played and travelled and we had practically no time to prepare for the games."

Adam Kovacs, BC Atomeromu player:
"We tried to play as good as we can. We missed our key-player and we couldn't replace him. It was a tough game and we wanted to fight until the end. But today we were very tired with a long trip is behind us. What's more, we've got Championship games. The opposite team pressured us and made us make too much mistakes."