2018-19SemifinalsGame 1
March 19, 2019 CET: 20:00
Local time: 20:00 MERCEDES-BENZ ARENA

ALBA holds to win Game 1 shootout

ALBA Berlin used its high-powered offense to move within one game of the 7DAYS EuroCup Finals by beating MoraBanc Andorra 102-97 in Game 1 of their best-of-three semi-finals series at home. ALBA passed the 100-point mark for the sixth time this season as Luke Sikma collected 20 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists while Peyton Siva had 18 points and 9 assists. Niels Giffey added 14 points, Rokas Giedraitis 13 and Martin Hermannsson chipped in 10 points – including a huge three-point play in the final minute – plus 7 assists. MoraBanc, which is playing this deep in the competition for the first time in club history, cut a 19-point deficit to 2 points in the final minute, but could not steal the road win. David Jelinek paced six scorers in double figures with 16 points, while Andrew Albicy had 14 points and 12 assists, Dylan Ennis and Jerome Jordan both scored 14 points, Michele Vitali had 11 and Rafa Luz 10 points. Reggie Upshaw tallied 9 points and 10 rebounds in the loss.

Albicy's three-pointer gave MoraBanc its first lead, 4-5. ALBA held MoraBanc scoreless for 2 minutes and Giedraits had a three-pointer and a tip-in in building a 15-7 lead. Moussa Diagne stopped the drought, but a Giffey triple helped build a 24-14 advantage. Vitali came off the visitors' bench for a three in getting it to 24-19, but Giffey answered with three-point play and ALBA was up 29-21 after 10 minutes. After Giffey reestablished a 10-point lead, MoraBanc was able to take advantage of ALBA turnovers with two Jordan baskets to pull to within 31-27. Another Jordan score had the gap down to 36-30, but ALBA's sharpshooters started really heating up as Giedraitis, Siva and Franz Wagner all hit from long range in opening a 52-35 lead. Vitali answered at the other end from the outside, but Sikma punched back from beyond the three-point line and the hosts led 59-43 at the break. MoraBanc was able to come up with some stops early in the second half and Albicy's three trimmed the deficit to 62-50. Siva would have none of a MoraBanc comeback with a three-pointer. Sikma added another three as ALBA went up 70-52. Another triple from Siva put the hosts ahead 75-56. MoraBanc started to score more consistently with Ennis completing a three-point play and Upshaw nailing a three-pointer just before the buzzer. MoraBanc trailed just 85-73 after 30 minutes. A Sikma alley-oop started the fourth quarter, but MoraBanc was not ready to go down without a fight with 5 straight points from Jordan to cut it to 87-80. Hermannsson came up with a big three-pointer to give the hosts some breathing room at 92-82 with 5 minutes left. The gap was 95-84 after Giedraitis's three-point play, but MoraBanc held ALBA scoreless on five straight possessions and Jelinek and Albicy both hit from the outside to make it 95-92 with 1:43 minutes left. The comeback continued and it was only 99-97 after a Vitali three-pointer with 47 seconds left. But Hermannsson converted a three-point play with 27 seconds to secure the victory.

Key contributer

Peyton Siva was Mr. Do-It-All for ALBA with 18 points on 5-of-6 shooting from the floor and 5-for-5 from the line to go with 4 rebounds, 9 assists, 2 steals and 7 fouls drawn for a performance index rating of 32.

Club record

ALBA scored 59 points in the first half to set a new club record in the EuroCup. The team's previous best mark was 58. The competition’s all-time mark is still safe as KK Buducnost Podgorica poured in 67 points in the second half against PAOK Thessaloniki in the 2004-05 season.

Telling numbers

ALBA shot the lights out, hitting 29 of 43 (67.3%) from two-point range and 11 of 22 (50.0%) from the outside as well as 11 of 12 (91.7%) free throws. It was needed as MoraBanc grabbed 15 offensive rebounds and turned the ball over only 10 times.

Next games

These two teams will head to Andorra for Game 2 on Friday when MoraBanc hopes to remain undefeated at home and force Game 3 on March 27.

Luke Sikma - ALBA  Berlin (photo Andreas Knopf - ALBA) - EC18
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Eurocupbasketball.com
Referees: JOVCIC, MILIVOJE; KOLJENSIC, MILOS ; VAN DEN BROECK, NICK
Attendance: 9111
By Quarter1234
ALBA Berlin29302617
MoraBanc Andorra21223024
End of Quarter1234
ALBA Berlin295985102
MoraBanc Andorra21437397
ALBA Berlin
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
1 SAIBOU, JOSHIKO 18:07 5 1/2 1/3         1   1     3 3 2
3 SIVA, PEYTON 29:52 18 2/2 3/4 5/5 1 3 4 9 2 4     3 7 32
5 GIFFEY, NIELS 15:14 14 5/6 1/2 1/1 2   2   1       3 2 14
10 SCHNEIDER, TIM 6:42   0/1               1   1     -3
15 HERMANNSSON, MARTIN 24:16 10 3/4 1/2 1/1   1 1 7   3     2 2 13
22 WAGNER, FRANZ 8:19 7 2/2 1/1           1       1   7
25 OGBE, KENNETH 2:11 2 0/1 0/1 2/2                 1 1  
31 GIEDRAITIS, ROKAS 30:25 13 3/6 2/4 1/1 2 3 5 1 2 1     2 2 15
32 THIEMANN, JOHANNES 5:24                         4   -4
33 CLIFFORD, DENNIS 17:49 6 3/4       3 3 1     2   2 1 10
35 NNOKO, LANDRY 14:23 7 3/5   1/2   2 2 1   1     2 1 5
43 SIKMA, LUKE 27:18 20 7/10 2/5   2 5 7 6   2   1 3 1 22
Team           1 1 2               2
Totals 200:00 102 29/43 11/22 11/12 8 18 26 26 6 13 2 2 26 20 115
        67.4% 50% 91.7%
Head coach: GARCIA RENESES, AITO
Min: Minutes played; Pts: Points; 2FG M-A: 2-point Field Goals (Made-Attempted); 3FG M-A: 3-point Field Goals (Made-Attempted); FT M-A: Free Throws (Made-Attempted); Rebounds: O (Offensive), D (Defensive), T (Total); As: Assists; St: Steals; To: Turnovers; Bl: Blocks (Fv: In Favor / Ag: Against); Fouls: Cm (Commited), Rv (Received); PIR: Performance Index Rating
MoraBanc Andorra
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
5 LUZ, RAFA 24:28 10 3/7 0/1 4/4       4 2       2 5 14
16 ALBICY, ANDREW 29:34 14 1/3 4/6     1 1 12   1     4   18
18 CAMPARA, SANI DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
21 DIAGNE, MOUSSA 26:16 7 3/5   1/2 3 1 4   1 3   1 5 5 5
22 SHURNA, JOHN 17:44 2 1/3 0/2     1 1   1 1     3 3 -1
24 COLOM, GUILLEM DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
25 JELINEK, DAVID 26:45 16 4/5 1/5 5/6 2 1 3   1 1     1 3 15
30 UPSHAW, REGGIE 22:43 9 3/4 1/2   2 8 10   1 1 1   1   17
31 ENNIS, DYLAN 23:02 14 5/8 0/3 4/8   3 3 3 1 1     2 5 13
33 VITALI, MICHELE 16:11 11 1/2 3/5   1   1 1   2         8
44 JORDAN, JEROME 13:17 14 6/7   2/3 3   3       1 1 2 5 18
Team           4 1 5     1         4
Totals 200:00 97 27/44 9/24 16/23 15 16 31 20 7 11 2 2 20 26 111
        61.4% 37.5% 69.6%
Head coach: NAVARRO, IBON

Head Coaches

GARCIA RENESES, AITO
ALBA Berlin
"I’m very happy, because it’s very difficult to win when you have playoffs like this, when the other team knows how to play, knows how to defend. It’s not always possible to play with all the good options, but we have a lot of good options, especially on offense. But before the game finished, it was not possible to think we were going to win because we had the advantage. We had excellent shooting percentages, but they had very good rebounding on offense. So I am happy to win this game because I know the difficulty. They play very clever. And now we start thinking about the next game and Andorra never lost at home in the EuroCup. We also know that if we lose there the third game is here."
NAVARRO, IBON
MoraBanc Andorra
"The first half from a defensive point of view was a complete disaster for us. We were not able to compete against them. I think the field goals they had were not something weird or strange because we know that they are in excellent shape in the last two or three weeks. So it's not something unexpected for us. The good news is that for the second half we learned how to play and compete against them. That is the best news for us tonight. I hope that my team will be able to compete from the first moment and the first second on Friday to gain the possibility to be back here next week."

Players

SIKMA, LUKE
ALBA Berlin
"It feels great. In a series like this, you want to get any win you can, especially at home. We came out great in the first half and kind of made it interesting in the second half, but happy to get the win. I think we were a little lax on defense. We weren't keeping them off the offensive glass and that gave them second chances. And they started to hit some shots."
SIVA, PEYTON
ALBA Berlin
"We knew they were going to make a run. They are a very good team. They play very hard. We knew they were going to make a run, we were just trying to contain it. We need to get some rest now and play them at home. We didn’t lose concentration, they just played better and made some shots. We have to do a better job of keeping them off the offensive glass and continue to play our pace."