Basketball Euroleague
Alba Berlin goes down at Fenerbahce
With 17 points, Alba’s best scorer in the defeat in Istanbul: Sterling Brown. photo
© Andreas Gora/dpa/archive image
There is nothing to gain for Alba in Istanbul in the third-to-last Euroleague game of the season. In terms of sport, nothing is possible for the Berliners anyway. An Istanbul resident sets a record.
The basketball players of Alba Berlin suffered their ninth defeat in a row in the Euroleague. The weakened Bundesliga team lost significantly to the Turkish top team Fenerbahce Istanbul with 68:103 (40:52).
With two game days to go, Alba remains bottom of the table with just five wins. The best Berlin thrower was Sterling Brown with 17 points. At Fenerbahce, Nigel Hayes-Davis scored an incredible 50 points – a Euroleague record.
Coach Israel Gonzalez was still without the injured Italian duo Matteo Spagnolo and Gabriele Procida. In addition, world champion Johannes Thiemann was out with back problems and center Yanni Wetzell also had to miss the game at short notice. And the in-form Turks put pressure on from the start. After less than a minute, Alba was already 0:8 behind.
The Berliners found hardly any means, especially defensively. Fenerbahce is still fighting for a better playoff position and it showed. In the middle of the second quarter, Berlin was already twenty points behind (24:44). But the guests got into the game better after that and were able to cut the score back to nine points (40:49).
But after the break, Fenerbahce got serious again. Alba hardly managed anything offensively and the hosts pulled ahead by 33 points at the beginning of the last quarter (86:53). The game was then decided prematurely, especially since the Berliners hardly offered any resistance.