Nicht nur aufgrund ihres 0:3-Starts in dieser EuroLeague-Saison waren Coach Aito und sein Team als krasse Außenseiter zum Spiel beim achtfachen Champion ZSKA Moskau am Freitagabend gereist. Über 20 Jahre ist es her, dass ALBA BERLIN zuletzt in Moskau gewonnen hatte, nämlich am 13. Januar 2000 mit 76:71. Das war noch in der FIBA-Europaliga und ZSKA war damals längst nicht so stark aufgestellt wie heute. Als dann auch nach bekannt wurde, dass die beiden Center Johannes Thiemann (Gesäßmuskelverletzung) und Kreso Nikic (Magen-Darm-Virus) fehlen würden, hatte wohl kaum noch jemand an einen Sieg gegen die russische Starmannschaft geglaubt.
Nicht so aber die Albatrosse, die ZSKA von Beginn an mit ihrem "Small Ball" die Stirn boten. Auch sehr hohe Trefferquoten der Gastgeber in der ersten Halbzeit brachte das Team nicht aus dem Konzept, das an diesem Abend viel vom berüchtigten "ALBA-Basketball" der vergangenen Saison mit Tempo und Spielwitz zeigte. In einer spannenden Schlussphase, waren es dann neben den über das ganze Spiel sehr auffälligen Simone Fontecchio und Luka Sikma vor allem die beiden gebürtigen Berliner Maodo Lô und Niels Giffey, die Verantwortung übernahmen und die entscheidenden Punkte zum 93:88-Sieg erzielten.
Viertelergebnisse (ALBA immer erstgenannt)
17:19 | 30:32 | 21:14 | 25:23 | Endergebnis 93:88 | Komplette Statistik
Game Facts (ALBA immer erstgenannt)
• Fehlende Spieler: Nikic, Thiemann (ALBA) | Antonov, Lopatin, Strelnieks (ZSKA)
• Reboundverhältnis 25 | 29
• Assists 20 | 13
• Ballverluste 11 | 18
Top-Performer ALBA: Fontecchio 20pt 3rb | Sikma 11pt 9rb 5as | Lô 15pt 3rb 2as | Eriksson 13pt 3st | Siva 12pt 4as 2st
Top-Performer ZSKA: James 27pt 6as 3rb | Clyburn 25pt 4rb | Shengelia 9pt 7rb 2as
Dimitris Itoudis (ZSKA-Cheftrainer): “Congratulations to ALBA for the win. Unfortunately it was a very bad night for us. Even though in the first half we shot the ball with the best percentages so far – 75% for threes and 64% for tows – I went into the locker room telling my players that was not the way to perform because they already had 8 offensive boards and we turned over the ball 8 times. Unfortunately I was proven right. In the second half, we started by shooting 0 of 9 for three and we turned over the ball 11 more times, and we gave them 14 more possessions than we had. I take all the blame for this performance but everybody needs to think seriously about how to communicate better and be more concentrated. We didn’t match their energy, we didn’t match their enthusiasm. We have not fought enough, and we paid the price.”
Aito Garcia Reneses (ALBA-Cheftrainer): “In the beginning we shot threes well but then we wanted to shoot three every time and this was a mistake. We played better in the last offenses. We played with focus in a difficult situation when there are so many games."
Daniel Hackett (ZSKA-Guard): "We’ve got to give ALBA credit. They were very solid and outplayed us. They deserved the win. We will learn from this and get better. We were not focussed or sharp, we turned the ball over and didn’t make shots when we tried to play catch-up. But you’ve got to be thankful for nights like this because it’s not always pretty and we have to look inside ourselves. Each of us has to take responsibility for this so we can get better.”
Simone Fontecchio (ALBA-Forward): “We are very happy for our first win. We played very good defense against a great team and we passed the ball well on offense. We played our game, our style. It was very tough because they’re a top team in EuroLeague but we did a great job especially on defense and rebounding. We didn’t have a few guys in the center position today but we did a good job.”
Peyton Siva (ALBA-Guard): “I thought we did a good job of sharing the ball, attacking and making some shots. We played our offensive style, we were able to get up and down and run, so credit to our team for staying in there and pushing the pace. We went out there to play with ambition to win. We got smacked in the last couple of games but today we wanted to go and play with ambition, heart and try to get the win.”