Basketball - Grieving Red Star win as Real Madrid stutter

By Zoran Milosavljevic BELGRADE (Reuters) - Red Star Belgrade boosted their hopes of reaching the Euroleague Top 16 with a 79-62 home win over Neptunas Klaipeda in a sombre atmosphere on Thursday as the Serbian club mourned last week’s death of a supporter killed in fan violence in Istanbul. Eight-time winners Real Madrid were stunned 85-75 at home by Unics Kazan, holders Maccabi Tel Aviv suffered an 84-61 home drubbing by CSKA Moscow and Olympiakos Piraeus lost their unbeaten record in an 89-70 defeat at Kutxa Laboral. The round seven games started with a minute's silence for Red Star’s 25-year old fan Marko Ivkovic, who was stabbed to death when rival supporters clashed before last Friday’s match with Galatasaray. The Serbian side paid tribute to Ivkovic with a huge banner displaying his name in a half-full Belgrade Arena, which is usually sold out for home games in Europe’s elite club competition. The celebrations after their emphatic win over Lithuania's Neptunas were muted with the fans fairly quiet throughout the contest apart from occasionally chanting Ivkovic’s name and cheering an odd spectacular move. “We played with a lot of emotion after what happened to Marko last week," Red Star’s American guard Charles Jenkins told a news conference. Coach Dejan Radonjic added: “It wasn’t easy to prepare for this game after the tragedy and having weathered a Neptunas storm late in the first half, we recovered well in the second.” Red Star improved their record to 4-3 as they bid to reach the second group stage, featuring two sections of eight teams, after towering centre Boban Marjanovic scored 24 points and Slovenia guard Jaka Blazic added 19. AMERICAN HUSTLE Sloppy Real missed a chance to book their berth with three games to spare after Unics guard Curtis Jerrells and fellow American centre D’Or Fischer combined for 48 points and hustled them off the court with ironclad defence. The home side nailed only 29 of 71 shots from the field and their top scorer Sergio Rodriguez netted a mere 12 points, with Unics dishing out 24 assists as they earned a memorable victory against the royalty of European club basketball. “This is an amazing win for us because we beat Real Madrid, one of the strongest teams in Europe,” Unics coach Evgeny Pachutin told www.euroleague.net. “We were able to keep control at both ends of the court, sharing the ball and playing smart. It’s a big win for me too because I had never beaten Madrid before but we have to keep improving if we are to reach the Top 16.” Having booked their own berth last week, CSKA ran riot at Maccabi and blew away the champions after former Toronto Raptors forward Sonny Weems led the Russian side with 19 points. Olympiakos, who also qualified, were undone in the Basque country as French guard Thomas Heurtel netted 18 points for Kutxa Laboral. (Writing by Zoran Milosavljevic; editing by Ken Ferris)