Withstood the pressure of Alba and Baskonia remained in the eighth place

Even in the final, Baskonia defeated Alba Berlin 93-87 in the “Buessa Arena” in the match that completed the first installment of the 31st Euroleague game and reached 16-15 with its record and remaining in the eighth privileged position of the standings, leaving firmly the German champions in penultimate place.

The match went through “forty waves”, with the lead and streak in the first three periods, but in the fourth the Basques reached +8 and withstood the pressure brought by the two three-pointers of the Germans.

For the Basques, Kochar stood out with 23, Thompson with 21, Marinkovic with 15 and Howard with 11 points. For the Germans, Lo stood out with 15, Wetzel with 13 and Prosinda with 11 points.

The match

The two teams alternated leading and scoring at the start of the match, with Marinkovic and Sikma respectively leading the way offensively for the two opponents. With a 6-0 run, Baskonia made it 15-10 with offensive pluralism. Led by Kochar, the Basques went on an 8-0 run with plenty of options in the German racket, but led by Loh, Alba went on a 9-0 run and the first quarter ended at 25-24.

Alba went on a 20-0 run at the start of the second period with Lo’s bobber to make it 25-23 on poor Basque perimeter defense and, combined with defensive and offensive rebounding, leading them to second attacks. Prosinda brought +11 for the German champions, but a 7-0 run by Baskonia with attacking pluralism reduced it to -4. Alba’s 7-0 run made it +9, Howard led a 7-0 run for Baskonia for -2, Alba’s 5-0 run made it 41-48, but his personal 4-0 run Howard ended the half at 44-48.

With a 5-0 run at the start of the third period, Alba reached 46-53 with Smith as the star. Lammers’ 3-pointer made it 48-56, but offensive polyphony in the perimeter for the Basques resulted in an 11-0 run and +5 for Baskonia, Marinkovic and Wetzel competing in scoring and, with the constant changes in the lead, Alba finished at 68-67 at quarter time.

A 6-0 Alba run led by Wetzel made it +3 for the German champions and Thompson’s back-to-back 3-pointers tied it twice for Baskonia. Blatt’s 3-pointer made it 80-81, but Kochar took matters into his own hands in the racket and fueled a 9-0 run to make it 89-81. Blatt’s 3-pointer made it 89-84 with 31 minutes left. Thompson’s shots made it 91-84, but Law’s 3-pointer at the 8 minute mark made it 91-87. The shots of the American forward in the 3” brought the score to 93-87 and the German’s missed three-pointer kept the Spaniards in the top eight.

The quarters:25-24, 44-48, 68-67, 93-87

The statistics