Maodo Lo aims for the basket against two Valencia opponents. Alba’s international scored 25 points Photo: City Press
By Nicolas Sowa
Alba Berlin suffered the third defeat in a row in the Euroleague.
On Thursday evening, the German basketball champions lost 88:94 (47:50) to the Spanish top team Valencia Basket in front of 7,278 spectators in their own hall. Alba remains in the table basement with six wins and 15 defeats. The hosts’ best throwers were Maodo Lo with 25 points and Johannes Thiemann with 17 points.
Both teams were equally there, the first throws sat. The game was initially very balanced and neither team was able to break away. Alba did lose a few balls on offense, but worked very carefully on the defensive and kept winning the ball.
Alba captain Luke Sikma is trying by all means to stop Valencia’s Jaime Pradilla Photo: City Press
At the beginning of the second quarter, Alba was 30:27 in the lead, but then the ball losses increased again. The punished Valencia ice cold. Again and again the guests moved to the basket or scored from a distance. Suddenly Alba was 35:42 behind. National player Lo in particular made sure that his team stayed on until the break.
Just under three minutes before the end of the third quarter, Thiemann brought the capital city back into the lead after a long time (62:61). The game was now hard fought. Two and a half minutes before the end it was 81:81 again. However, in the final stages, Alba had to accept some questionable refereeing decisions.