
CAI Zaragoza led from start to finish, and beat the visiting Alba Berlin 75-50 on Wednesday night. Win improves Zaragoza to 4-3 in a share of the third place in Group D, while Alba drops to 5-2 but remains in a share of the first place. Zaragoza grabbed control of the game from the start, taking 19-7 lead with Damjan Rudez nailing a pair of triples, and advantaged grew to 34-13 midway through the second. The hosts never looked back after halftime, cruising to another huge victory. Rudez paced the winners with 14 points, Jonathan Tabu scored 12, and Michael Roll 11 points for Zaragoza. Reggie Redding had 10, being the only scorer in double figures for Alba, and Levon Kendall added 9 in defeat.
Rudez and Tabu hit back-to-back three-pointers to get thing going for the hosts, who went to the foul line often, making 6 of 6 free throws, before another triple and a jumper from Rudez made it 19-7. Alba’s offense did not find its rhythm. A layup from David Logan, his only basket of the game, cut it to 19-11 at the start of the second quarter, but Pedro Llompart hit a three-pointer, before Jon Stefansson scored a layup and followed it up with a triple for 28-13. A basket-plus-foul from Kendall, and a layup from Vojdan Stojanovski kept Berliners’ hopes to get things started, but Viktor Sanikidze had a dunk and a three-pointer in the final two minutes of the second quarter, extending the lead to 39-18. Akeem Vargas and Cliff Hammonds cut it to 39-22 at halftime, but the third quarter started with a dunk from Rudez, before Tabu and Pere Tomas hit back-to-back triples for 51-24. A dunk from Redding and a layup from Uros Slokar snapped the hosts’ run, but Roll hit a triple and a jumper for 56-28. With game out of reach, Redding ended the third quarter with a triple, and hit one early in the fourth, cutting it to 60-38. But there were no let downs from Zaragoza, as Llompart nailed a three-pointer, and Roll hit a pair of jumpers for 67-44. Before game’s end, Rudez made a dunk and hit a jump shot to finish as the game’s leading scorer, before Alba’s Bar Timor scored his first ever field goal to round out the scoring.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
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