2019-20Regular SeasonRound 22
ALBA Berlin 70
Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul 74
January 30, 2020 CET: 19:30
Local time: 19:30 MERCEDES-BENZ ARENA

Westermann wins it for Fenerbahce in Berlin

Leo Westermann scored all 11 of his points in the game's final 4 minutes to lead Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul to a 70-74 victory over ALBA Berlin on Thursday night at Mercedes-Benz Arena in the German capital. ALBA led for much of the game, but succumbed to Westermann, who outscored the entire home team in the closing stretch. The result lifted Fenerbahce's 10-12 and the edge of the playoff zone, while ALBA slipped to 7-15 at the bottom of the table. Kostas Sloukas led five Fenerbahce scorers in double figures with 16 points, Luigi Datome added 15 points, Westermann finished with 11 and Jan Vesely and Nando De Colo scored 10 points apiece. Rokas Giedraitis paced the hosts with 14 points, Landry Nnoko scored 11, Martin Hermannsson 10 and Luke Sikma delivered 8 assists in defeat.

De Colo started well for Fenerbahce, though Nnoko kept ALBA close. Giedraitis heated up and Peyton Siva made a great lead pass to find Sikma for a go-ahead layup that made it 11-10. Fenerbahce responded with 7 straight points to lead 13-17. ALBA finished the quarter with 9 unanswered points, including Tyler Cavanaugh's triple to beat the first-quarter buzzer for a 22-17 advantage. Fenerbahce committed turnovers on the first three possessions of the second quarter and after a three by Makai Mason put ALBA up 8, the visitors called a timeout. De Colo – the EuroLeague all-time leader in free throw accuracy – split free throws to end the Fenerbahce drought. Hermannsson shined with a blocked shot at one end and a three-pointer at the other to give ALBA a 30-20 lead. The points started to climb as the teams traded shots. Marcus Eriksson's three-pointer made it 37-26, but Datome responded with a three for the visitors. Giedraitis briefly gave ALBA a double-digit lead again before Vesely's layup set the halftime score at 41-33.

Fenerbahce regrouped over the break and led by Vesely and Sloukas closed the gap to 4 on a number of occasions, but ALBA remained in control. The Fenerbahce defense caused fits for ALBA and Vesely made it 51-48 with 2 minutes remaining in the third quarter. Free throws by Mason and Cavanaugh rebuilt ALBA's cushion and Nnoko added a foul shot for a 56-50 lead through three quarters. A pair of threes by Sloukas early in the fourth again narrowed the margin to 60-58. Nikola Kalinic tied it, but a three by Hermannsson put ABA back in front. The lead would be brief, a three by Westermann gave Fenerbahce its first lead since the first quarter, 63-65, with 4 minutes remaining. Both teams went cold and neither scored for the next 2-pus minutes. Westermann netted 2 free throws with 1:32 to play and a three with 1 minute to play that boosted the visitors' lead to 65-70. Eriksson drilled a deep three to keep ALBA alive, but Westermann beat the shot clock with another triple and Derrick Williams iced the game from the foul line.

Pivotal player

Leo Westermann took control of the game late and outscored the entire ALBA team 7-11 over the final 4 minutes. His first basket of the night was a triple to give Fenerbahce the lead, 63-65. He then added free throws and a pull-up triple for a 65-70 advantage with 1 minute remaining. His next three-pointer all but wrapped up the game. He contributed 5 rebounds along with his 11 points for a performance index rating of 15 in just 13 minutes on the floor.

Telling numbers

Fenerbahce came into the game last in the league in rebounding with 29.6 per game, but managed to outrebound ALBA 23-31. The visitors committed 14 turnovers in the first half, but only 5 in the last 20 minutes as they rallied back.

Mr. 2000

Kostas Sloukas scored the 2,000th point of his career, becoming the 37th player in competition history to reach that number. Jan Vesely also moved his name up the ladder of all-time EuroLeague greats. He moved past Kerem Gonlum for sole possession of sixth place in career offensive rebound with 423. Vesely also blocked 3 shots to claim 11th place in that category with 146 career rejections. He leapfrogged Robertas Javtokas (144).

What's next?

ALBA is in action next on Tuesday, February 4 when it visits AX Armani Exchange Milan. Fenerbahce heads to Russia to challenge Zenit St Petersburg the following evening.

Jan Vesely - Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul - EB19
Thursday, January 30, 2020
Euroleague.net
Referees: PUKL,SASA; TRAWICKI, TOMASZ; HALLIKO, AARE
Attendance: 12122
By Quarter1234
ALBA Berlin22191514
Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul17161724
End of Quarter1234
ALBA Berlin22415670
Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul17335074
ALBA Berlin
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
1 MASON, MAKAI 13:45 9 1/3 1/2 4/4   1 1 3 1 2     2 3 10
3 SIVA, PEYTON 16:42 2 1/4 0/3         3 1 2     3 3 -2
5 GIFFEY, NIELS 2:06                         1   -1
8 ERIKSSON, MARCUS 19:39 8 1/3 2/3     1 1     1   1   1 5
9 MATTISSECK, JONAS 1:45           1 1           1    
15 HERMANNSSON, MARTIN 25:44 10 1/7 2/4 2/2   1 1 2 3 3 1 1 1 1 5
25 OGBE, KENNETH 15:43 2 1/3       1 1         2 1   -2
31 GIEDRAITIS, ROKAS 26:42 14 4/6 2/4   1 3 4 2 1       2 3 18
32 THIEMANN, JOHANNES 14:19 4 2/2       1 1     1     2 2 4
34 CAVANAUGH, TYLER 12:19 5   1/3 2/2       1 1 1       3 7
35 NNOKO, LANDRY 24:21 11 4/4   3/4 1 5 6     2     3 3 14
43 SIKMA, LUKE 26:55 5 2/2   1/2 1 4 5 8 1 1     2 2 17
Team           1 1 2               2
Totals 200:00 70 17/34 8/19 12/14 4 19 23 19 8 13 1 4 18 21 77
        50% 42.1% 85.7%
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
Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
2 NUNNALLY, JAMES 1:36                   2     1   -3
9 WESTERMANN, LEO 12:43 11 0/1 3/3 2/2   5 5           1 1 15
12 KALINIC, NIKOLA 28:06 6 3/6 0/6     1 1 4 3 2     3 2 2
16 SLOUKAS, KOSTAS 30:25 16 5/7 2/3   1 4 5 5 2 5     5 3 18
19 DE COLO, NANDO 34:13 10 2/5 1/4 3/4   4 4 3   4   1   4 9
21 WILLIAMS, DERRICK 13:50 4 0/1 1/2 1/2   2 2           1 2 4
23 THOMAS, MALCOLM 11:10 2 0/1   2/2   1 1     1 1   3 1  
24 VESELY, JAN 33:27 10 4/4   2/2 2 4 6 2 1 2 3   2 5 23
32 CANDAN, BERKAY DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
35 MUHAMMED, ALI 9:57   0/1 0/1         1   1     1   -3
70 DATOME, LUIGI 24:33 15 3/3 3/5   2 3 5 1 1 2     4   14
77 LAUVERGNE, JOFFREY DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Team           1 1 2               2
Totals 200:00 74 17/29 10/24 10/12 6 25 31 16 7 19 4 1 21 18 81
        58.6% 41.7% 83.3%
Head coach: OBRADOVIC, ZELJKO

Head Coaches

GARCIA RENESES, AITO
ALBA Berlin
"I congratulate Fenerbahce. They are a very good team. They had a bad start to the season, but they are getting better and better. I also congratulate my team, which played with great effort and intensity. Of course, we don’t like the result, but most of the time we were doing well. I am happy with the team. It‘s true that Niels Giffey normally plays more minutes. Nothing was wrong with him. It was just tactical reasons. Kenneth Ogbe played really well tonight and I am happy with him."
OBRADOVIC, ZELJKO
Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul
"The key was [turnovers in the second half] and also our defense in the crucial moments of game. First of all, congratulations to ALBA. I believe that they play really really good basketball. They also played a really good game and Istanbul and all season. They are a team that knows how to react during every moment of the game. Congratulations to my colleague, Coach Aito. [The character we showed late] is for sure a positive saying, but I will go back to things that happened In the first half. We need to change this. We need to understand that we have enough quality to play much better basketball, like the way we played the last 10 minutes of the game."

Players

NNOKO, LANDRY
ALBA Berlin
“They made some tough shots towards the end of the game, so we just have to do a better job trying to close out the game. We have to play the whole 40 minutes. We have to go back and learn the game and try to learn from it. We played hard today for sure. There are some things that we have to work on, but I'm excited with the way we’re headed right now."
SLOUKAS, KOSTAS
Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul
"First of all, I feel proud because this was an important win for the team. As a guy who has played basketball since he was 8 years old to achieve something like that, I am very proud [of reaching 2,000 career points]. I worked very hard for that, but I will continue to work harder because this is motivation for me to work harder. Obviously, we played better in the second half, because in the first half we made too many turnovers. I think we had 13 turnovers in 20 minutes. This is impossible. We control the rhythm better. We know that when ALBA has the rhythm, they are dangerous and they showed this today. In the crucial moments, we were tougher and we won the game.”
VESELY, JAN
Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul
"We had a lot of turnovers in the first half and we took care of the ball much better in the second half. That got us the win. I'm still finding myself after the injury and trying to get into better playing shape, but for now, I feel good and I'm happy to help the team. The Turkish fans here supported us on the road and made a great atmosphere and helped us a lot. It's great that we could deliver a win for them."
No results found.