By Stefan Djordjevic / info@eurohoops.net
Alba Berlin scored a season-high in a convincing 100-80 home win against Khimki Moscow in Round 11 of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague.
Niels Giffey was leading the effort with career-high 22 points on 4-4 from deep followed by Luke Sikma with 20 and Ben Lammers with 18 points. Sikma added nine rebounds, five assists and three steals for 32 PIR.
“This win feels really good. We are getting there as a team. After a couple of tough losses, we are still adjusting as a team to play the way we want to play: fast, hard, creative. When you get something going as a player, of course it feels good, the energy goes up. Wins like this just help a lot. We will be on the road a lot in December and it is nice to go into that stretch with a win,” Giffey said.
Peyton Siva was creating open shots for his teammates with ten assists to go with six points. For Khimki, Jonas Jerebko scored 20 and Alexey Shved 11 points.
Shved was having a tough night as Alba’s defense collapsed on him and he managed to dish ten assists for a double-double, however, his and Jordan Mickey’s seven turnovers each contributed to a total of 23 times the ball was handed over to the German team.
Coach Rimas Kurtinaitis was far from satisfied with his squad: “Today we were too slow. Too many turnovers, too slow. For sure, ALBA was much better than our team. We had really big problems with defense, with the effort on defense. This is the biggest problem in our team.”
That was without a doubt the main reason for the downfall of the away squad which opened up the match with ten straight points. An excellent shooting night by Alba, and especially from the mid-range by Giffey and Lammers, helped the hosts take over the lead (50-44) and continue the momentum in the second half to completely outplay Khimki.
Alba logged its third win in EuroLeague this season (3-6) while Khimki stayed at two (2-8).