Evergreen Reyes shines as Real sink Zalgiris

In the day's other top fixtures, Germans Brose Baskets Bamberg stunned triple former winners Olympiakos Piraeus 77-72 and Khimki Moscow eased to a 76-68 home victory over Spaniards Laboral Kutxa Vitoria.

The 35-year-old Reyes racked up 24 points and six rebounds as Real overpowered a battling Zalgiris whose former trophy-laden guard Sarunas Jasikevicius made his coaching debut.

The champions never looked back after racing into a 10-2 lead but coach Pablo Laso heaped praise on the Lithuanian outfit who won the title in 1999.

"All credit to Zalgiris and their new coach, they kept coming at us and profited from all our mistakes," Laso told Euroleague television.

"It was obvious Jasikevicius injected a new spirit into the side and we couldn't relax even when we were 14 points ahead."

Mexican centre Gustavo Ayon also played a big part in Real's win with 16 points and 15 rebounds while forward KC Rivers chipped in with 14 points.

Olympiakos, in contrast, trailed throughout the game with unfancied Bamberg and their late rally came up short as Darius Miller buried 23 points for the visitors.

It was a second successive shock win for Bamberg who routed Zalgiris 96-63 in the previous round.

Thursday also produced a cracking tripleheader, with six-times winners CSKA Moscow beating Barcelona 93-82 in the stand-out game.

An expensively-assembled Fenerbahce Istanbul team fought back to down Russians Lokomotiv Krasnodar 85-79 while Red Star Belgrade stung Panathinaikos 74-63 in Greece.

Although CSKA missed French guard Nando De Colo and towering British centre Joel Freeland, a former Portland Trail Blazers campaigner, they still had too much firepower for Barcelona.

Cory Higgins led the Moscow outfit with 20 points while Serbia playmaker Milos Teodosic added 16 and six assists.

"Congratulations to the fans who created a great atmosphere and to my team because it was difficult to face a strong and well-coached opponent without De Colo and Freeland," said CSKA's Greek coach Dimitris Itoudis.

A strong final quarter allowed Fenerbahce to make it three wins out of three in the Top 16 that features two groups of eight.

The top four from each section will qualify for the best-of-five quarter-final series. The winners advance to the May 13-15 Final Four in Berlin.