By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Jordan Loyd was everywhere on the floor with a season-high 25 points, six rebounds and five steals to lead Zenit St. Petersburg to a 75 – 66 win over ALBA Berlin at home. This was the fourth straight victory for Zenit while ALBA suffered its second defeat in a row.
Loyd also scored a key pair of free throws for the 71 – 64 and then the floater for the 73 – 66 to give Zenit a three-possession pillow at a moment when ALBA was pushing to bring the game at a shooting distance. While Zenit led from near-start to finish, they always felt their opponents’ breath down their neck since they never managed to establish a double-digit lead.
Marcus Eriksson scored 16 out of his team-high 20 points for ALBA in the third period and then had free throws for the 69 – 62. Maodo Lo added a pair of his own from the line to bring the German side close 69 – 64 after a comeback from down 11 early in the fourth period but that was when Loyd took it on his own to finish the game for Zenit.
“I think it was more of a team effort, for sure. We have to do better coming out in third quarters. We are kind of struggling on that but as a team, we played pretty well defensively. We didn’t get the rebounds we needed to but as a whole, we played well. We are on the right way but know it is a long year. We have a big game on Friday against Milan. We just have to keep rolling until the next game, with the right attitude.”
Jordan Mickey had 12 points and seven rebounds for Zenit while Conner Frankamp scored 10. From ALBA, Johannes Thiemann finished with 11 points plus six boards and Lo dropped 10 points.
“What’s most important after this game is that we have one more victory and we can build our mentality for the next one”, said Zenit coach Xavi Pascual and his colleague from ALBA Israel Gonzalez agreed on the work that EuroLeague teams have to do in a week of double-action: “We have to keep working, to keep practicing and improving and now, we have to recover because we have a game in 48 hours and have to look for the next one.”