It was slowly getting into the decisive phase and was therefore exactly the right time for the basketball players from Alba Berlin to heat up the 1600 spectators in the arena at the Ostbahnhof on Thursday evening again. In a tight Euroleague game against Zenit St. Petersburg, Tamir Blatt hit an important three-pointer, then Christ Koumadje dunked over his opponent and finally Yovel Zoosman also scored from long-range. The small advantage of this intermediate sprint was finally enough for the Berliners to prevail against the play-off candidate from Russia with 76:67 (23:12, 11:22, 17:14, 25:19).
Alba coach Israel Gonzalez was able to call on center Ben Lammers again, who had been absent with a gastrointestinal infection, but had to do without Louis Olinde. The winger suffered a serious capsule injury to the thumb of his left hand in training on Wednesday and will be out for several weeks. Marcus Eriksson also had to watch in civilian clothes with persistent foot problems.
In the initial phase, however, these failures of the team were not to be seen at all. Alba played like one piece, dominated the rebounds, scored from the zone and from distance. There were only a few minutes played when Zenit was forced to call the first time-out. Shortly thereafter, the Berlin lead was in double digits for the first time.
In the second half of the game, however, the Russians improved significantly and it was now clear why they had arrived fourth in the Euroleague. The guests defended much more intensively and let Alba fight hard for every goal. The gap narrowed by the minute. A few controversial referee decisions did the rest to slowly change the mood of the Berlin fans and players.
At the beginning of the second half, Zenit took the lead for the first time since the first minute and the game became more and more contested and divided. At Zenit, Billy Baron turned up the heat, while Jaleen Smith and Zoosman scored important points on the Berlin side. So it remained exciting until the end – with the better ending for Alba.
Source: Tagesspiegel
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