Cunningham, Booker lead Bayern over Rytas
FC Bayern Munich picked up its first victory in the 7DAYS EuroCup Top 16 by beating Lietuvos Rytas Vilnius convincingly 81-68 at home. Jared Cunningham and Devin Booker each scored 18 points for Bayern, Nihad Dedovic added 14 points and Milan Macvan posted 12 points and 11 rebounds as Bayern improved to 1-1 in Group F. Bayern hit 24 of 28 free throws (85.7%) compared to 6 of 12 (50%) for Rytas, which dropped to 0-2 in the group. Rokas Giedraitis paced Rytas with 14 points and Mindaugas Girdziunas hit 3 three-pointers for 11 points in the loss.
Cunningham opened the game with a three-pointer before Jimmy Baron answered at the other end from long range. Back-to-back baskets from Loukas Mavrokefalidis gave Rytas its first lead, 5-7. Baron hit another triple and Arnas Butkevicius also hit from outside to make it 9-13 lead. After Bayern pulled ahead 14-13, Giedraitis scored 9 straight Rytas points including a three-pointer for a 19-22 edge, which Bayern reversed to lead 23-22 after 10 minutes. The first four scores of the second quarter resulted in lead changes with Anton Gavel making it 27-26. Then Cunningham and Macvan combined for 9 points in an 11-1 run for a double-digit lead 38-28. Chris Kramer picked up 3 points at the other end to bring Rytas within 42-35 at the break.
Reggie Redding started the second half scoring with a three-pointer and Bayern held Rytas scoreless for nearly the first three minutes in building a 49-35 lead. Giedraitis finally got the visitors on the board, but Macvan extended the gap to 15 points with the next basket. Six straight points from Booker in a 9-2 spurt helped Bayern increase the advantage to 62-42. Egidijus Mockevicius tallied two straight baskets as Rytas trimmed the deficit to 62-48 after 30 minutes. Rytas tried to use three-pointers to get back into the game early in the fourth quarter with Kramer hitting from long range and Girdziunas knocking down a pair of triples to trim the deficit to 70-59. Bayern punched back though with a 10-2 run with 8 points from Booker, including two big dunks for an insurmountable 80-61 lead with about two minutes to play (source: eurocupbasketball.com).