Zalgiris beats ALBA away to extend streak 42
Zalgiris Kaunas overcame offensive struggles to extend its winning streak to five games by knocking off host ALBA Berlin 71-74 on Tuesday.
Zalgiris hit just 5 three-pointers – none in the game’s first 19 minutes – but scored enough when it counted as Nigel Hayes nailed 3 triples in scoring a team-high 18 points for to lift his team’s record to 10-7. Joffrey Lauvergne picked up 16 points and 7 rebounds and Marius Grigonis scored 8 of his 12 points in the final 3 minutes for the winners.
Simone Fonteccehio paced ALBA with 14 points while Niels Giffey, Tim Schneider and Luke Sikma all had 11 points. Sikma left the game with a leg injury with 9 minutes left and didn’t return for ALBA, which suffered its third straight loss to fall to 6-10.
Grigonis opened the scoring for Zalgiris while Fontecchio did so for ALBA. Lauvergne and Sikma swapped 4 points each and Fontecchio’s second score gave ALBA its first lead, 8-6. Both teams were playing hard-nosed defense, with Zalgiris going more than 6 minutes without a basket but still evening the score at 10-10 on Rokas Jokubaitis’s free throws. ALBA managed to grab a 14-12 after 10 minutes.
Jokubaitis’s layup soon pushed Zalgiris back ahead 14-15 but Fontecchio hitting the game’s first three-pointer to start a 10-0 ALBA run to a 25-17 lead. Lauvergne’s tip-in stopped that surge only to see Giffey hit from deep and Maodo Lo’s three-point play made it a double-digit ALBA advantage, 33-23. Lauvergne scored twice for Zalgiris and assisted Hayes’s three-pointer – Zalgiris’s first – on the way to a 37-31 score at intermission.
Hayes hit twice from downtown while scoring Zalgiris’s first 8 points after the break to make it 41-39. Lauvergne threw down a pair of alley-oop dunks and Paulius Jankunas pushed Zalgiris ahead 43-46. Augustine Rubit added 2 baskets as Zalgiris stretched the difference to 48-54 after 30 minutes.
Sikma opened the fourth-quarter scoring but Hayes followed with 5 points as the Zalgiris lead grew to 50-59. ALBA responded with 7 points including Schneider’s three-pointer at 57-59. Grigonis scored back-to-back baskets before Giffey’s put-back made it 65-67. Arturas Milaknis punched back with a three-pointer only to see Schneider convert an and-on basket before Grigonis calmly drained 2 of 2 foul shots with 13 seconds to play for a 68-72 Zalgiris lead. Schneider would not let ALBA die, hitting a corner triple to make it a one-point game, 71-72, with 4.7 seconds left. But Grigonis added 2 more free throws with 3.5 seconds remaining to ice the game.
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