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Galatasaray keep on acquiring new players

After Young joining recently, club management decided to acquire swingman Carter from Usak to start filling out the spots left after Aradorio, Jawai and Vougioukas left. This game should be Carter's debut

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Two Euroleague Top 16 games are to be played at the end of 2014, one of them being the meeting between Galatasaray and Zalgiris. The Turkish team barely managed to qualify for Top 16 after beating group leader Olympiacos in the final group stage game. They needed Neptunas to lose to Valencia, but that was settled about 10 minutes into that game. It was far more difficult for Galatasaray to bring down the Greek team, but lead by Arroyo (24 points) they managed to record an extremely important win.

Galatasaray's top scorer Erceg missed the Olympiacos game with a minor injury. He got back in the meeting with Darussafaka, but wasn't at his best level, having scored 8 points (2-for-6 from the floor). Arroyo recorded team-best 25 points again, but had to take a lot of shots in the process (8-for-17 from the floor, 5-for-12 in three pointers), recording 5 rebounds and 6 assists as well. Center Maric had his debut at Galatasaray, spending 7 minutes in the game to score two points, miss 2 free throws, record one rebounds and two personal fouls. 

- I'm going to use him Euroleague against the powerful centers our opponents have. I don't expect a lot of points from him, but his experience will be more than helpful - Galatasaray's coach said.

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In spite of Arroyo's 25 points, Micov was the one to score the key winning points in the very finish of the game. Other than the two of them, Young recorded a double-digit point efficiency as well.

- The win over Darussafaka was very valuable. They are one of the title contenders and the most consistent team in the league - Ataman said.

Maric is not the last signing that joined Galatasaray - they announced the acquisition of swingman Carter from Usak yesterday morning. He played an important role on his former team, being the second best scorer with an average of 13.8 points. He was also averaging 6.6 rebounds (second best at Usak) and 2.3 assists (third best). The American should have his debut against Zalgiris today, according to the official Euroleague website.

- I want to thank the management for acquiring the players we need. Our ambition is running high again ahead of the second stage - Ataman said. Rumor has it, Mickael Gelabale is to join the team as well, despite rejecting the original proposal.

Zalgiris had an even more dramatic finish of the Euroleague group stage. They had it good with two more rounds to go, but first lost to UNICS and were then forced to play a dramatic finish with bottom table Dinamo Sassari after taking a 15-point lead at half-time. All they needed was a simple win, but Dinamo made a comeback to take a 77-68 lead with three minutes on the clock. Anderson scored the winning shot for Zalgiris and was awarded a foul with 2.5 seconds in the game.

Zalgiris then did two league games before Christmans, beating Preienai away and then the poorest-performing Lithuanian team Mazeikaja by 48 points. 

Coach Krapikas went with American Cherry as the starting point guard, but kept him in for only 9 minutes. We still don't know whether the reason for it was an injury or something else. Lekavicuis mostly played the points guard position the rest of the game, with Kariniauskas stepping in a few times. Krapikas wanted to rest some of his key places a bit since it became obvious from the start they will record a one-sided win. All 12 players scored and Milaknis recorded team-best 20 points, with 6-for-10 in three pointers.

Stats are not particularity relevant after such a one-sided blowout, we will just note that Zalgiris did better in every segment of the game without the help of their top player Anderson, who was given a day off.

There is no information about absences ahead of the away game in Turkey, but judging by their previous head-to-head games, Zalgiris will try and win on account of good defense, since that saw them beat Efes, Nizhny Novgorod, and UNICS. Everything in offense will be starting from Anderson, who is not a point guard, but often organized the attacks and can afford to do so given his quality. Zalgiris have a few tall players but Galatasaray now have Young and Maric.

Position three will be where the key battle will take place - Anderson against Pocius/Micov. Galatasaray don't have a classical missmatch at position four, with Jankauns sometimes taking over position 3 after pick'n'pops. Point guard position is where Zalgiris will struggle with Lekavicius who is quite short and young Kariniauskas and Cherry. Arroyo could easily be superior, especially given his recent performances.