Coach Aito und sein Team haben am Dienstagabend einen Sieg gegen das hochfavorisierte Armani Mailand nur ganz knapp verpasst. In einem durchweg spannenden Spiel in der Mercedes-Benz Arena, in dem nie ein Team zweistellig führte, verloren die Albatrosse am Ende mit 78:81.
In der ersten Halbzeit lag ALBA noch in Führung, aber in der zweiten Hälfte steigerten sich die Italiener um die WM-Starts Luis Scola und Sergio Rodriguez deutlich und brachten ihre individuelle Klasse immer mehr aufs Parkett. Sie erspielten sich Ende des dritten Viertels eine kleine Führung und gaben diese nicht mehr aus der Hand, was auch immer die nie aufgebenden Albatrosse versuchten. Auch wenn nun von den ersten fünf EuroLeague-Spielen vier verloren wurden, bleibt die positive Erkenntnis, dass bei ALBA nur Kleinigkeiten gefehlt haben, um nominell deutlich stärker besetzte Topteams wie Efes Istanbul oder Armani Mailand zu besiegen.
Viertelergebnisse (ALBA immer erstgenannt)
18:17 | 15:9 | 17:27 | 28:28 | Endergebnis 78:81 | Komplette Statistik
Game Facts (ALBA immer erstgenannt)
• Fehlende Spieler: Eriksson, Peno (ALBA)
• Reboundverhältnis 34 | 42 - Assists 15 | 16 - Ballverluste 13 | 19
• Zuschauer: 9.351
Top-Performer ALBA: Siva 20pt 2as | Giedraitis 18pt 6rb 3st | Sikma 9pt 6rb 4as
Top-Performer Mailand: Rodriguez 17pt 4rb 4as | Scola 14pt 6rb 3as | Nedovic 12pt
Ettore Messina (Cheftrainer Mailand): "This was a two face game. In the first half we were too tired and overtought the game. ALBA is an excellent team and is very well coached – as always with coach Aito. They are very aggressive and shoot high volume threes. In the second half we managed to stay calm and play with more confidence. Our second half and especially the third quarter were good. I congratule my players, because it is not easy to win on the road. It is never easy to win in the EuroLeague."
Aito Garcia Reneses (Cheftrainer ALBA): "First thing is to congratulate Armani. The second thing is, they scored a lot of three point shots in the first half. Perhaps we thought they wouldn’t score that much because in the first half they only shot three of eleven. We were competing in scoring with them. You score, now I score. Instead we should have put more pressure in defense like it is our style."
Luke Sikma: "I think the difference was a lot of little plays. I think we showed we can score on guys. In the second quarter, it was a little bit misleading, they missed some open shots. They knew they would come back, it would not last forever. I think we did pretty good defensively, but down the stretch, they made some plays. All you can do is learn from this one. It is going to be a tall order winning in Madrid. This is going to be tough about this season, we are accustomed to winning games the last couple of years and it is going to be tough to get wins, especially on the road. And it is easy to get down on yourself after a loss, especially one like this where we were so close."