By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
While Bayern Munich beat Crvena Zvezda in Facundo Campazzo’s EuroLeague debut with the red-and-white team, in the other matchup between Serbians and Germans, Partizan Belgrade beat ALBA Berlin 88-74.
After a pretty balanced first half (44-42), in the third quarter, Zeljko Obradovic‘s team had a 35-9 run to run away against Israel Gonzalez’s side, entering the last ten minutes up by 24 points.
Aleksa Avramovic put up his season-high of 19 points, being on fire from beyond the arc (5/7). He hadn’t scored more than 15 points since the Round 18 clash against Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Zach LeDay and Kevin Punter followed, combining for 29 points, while Mathias Lessort had the highest PIR of the Serbian team with 18 after a performance of 10 points, 6 rebounds, and 8 fouls drawn.
“I believe the third quarter was obviously the key to this game. We played excellent defense, allowed only 9 points, and were very good offensively. After that, we stopped a little bit, however, congratulations to my team, an important win for us. If we talk about defense, the third quarter was one of the best quarters of the season for sure”, Zeljko Obradovic said after the victory.
Maodo Lo, after scoring 25 points against Crvena Zvezda in Round 25, was once again the highest scorer on the German side, ending the game with 17 points.
Christ Koumadje went close to a double-double with 9 points and 10 rebounds, ending with a PIR of 22, while Johannes Thiemann and Yanni Wetzell added 10 points each.
ALBA tried its best in the end
“Partizan played a very good game, especially a really good second half where we struggled in offense due to their tough defense. We lost the focus thinking too much at the refs, we have to learn from that. I’m happy for the effort my players, they didn’t give up and they fought until the end in an environment like today”, Israel Gonzalez said in the post-game press conference.
In the last ten minutes, ALBA Berlin showed a great attitude, reducing the gap all the way to 10 points thanks to a 17-3 run. However, it wasn’t enough to escape from the Stark Arena with victory.
Still, Partizan’s Kevin Punter gave them credit for their effort: “ALBA is a tough team regardless of their effort. They came in and they fought. They tried to make it close at the end, so we had to really make sure to cut down the turnovers and seal the game. They kept fighting but we were able to finish the game and take care of the home court. continue to try to make the push for the top eight places. In the third quarter, we needed to lock in. We wanted to come out strong after the first half, we were down 2 points, so we wanted to make a statement, come out strong, aggressive defensively, and everything else would flow.”
In Round 27, ALBA Berlin (7-19) comes back to Germany to face Zalgiris Kaunas on March 7 at 20:00 CET. Thirty minutes later, Partizan Belgrade (14-12) will travel to Italy to face Virtus Segafredo Bologna.
PHOTO CREDIT: Turkish Airlines EuroLeague