


ALBA Berlin grabbed an 88-71 victory over LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne on Thursday at the Mercedes-Benz Arena to end its Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season in style. The visitors put up a good fight in the first half, but a dominant ALBA scored 50 points after the break to seal its second successive victory. ALBA improved to 11-23 and could potentially finish 15th if both Panathinaikos and Bayern Munich lose in this last round. Bottom-placed ASVEL recorded its 13th straight defeat to drop to 8-26.
Luke Sikma and Louis Olinde led five double-digit ALBA scorers with 12 points each. Johannes Thiemann added 11, with Ben Lammers and Jaleen Smith scoring 10 apiece. Youssoupha Fall paired his 14 points with 6 rebounds for the losing side. Nando de Colo added 13 points and Jonah Mathews had 12, all of which were scored in the second half.
ALBA got off to a solid start, as Maodo Lo sank a triple and set up Sikma for an early 5-0 run. The visitors bounced back after a slow start, with Alex Tyus registering 6 consecutive points to allow ASVEL to trim down the deficit to 9-8. This is when ALBA received an important boost from the bench, as Thiemann was brought on to score 5 unanswered points for a 14-8 ALBA lead. Fall, dominant in the paint, made it 20-16 after 10 minutes. Thiemann took his tally to 9 points with Yovel Zoosman hitting a triple and setting up Smith for an easy layup to boost ALBA's lead to 28-23. After a timeout, De Colo scored from behind the arc to bring ASVEL within 32-28. Charles Kahudi tied the game with an easy layup, 32-32, but ALBA managed to take a narrow 38-36 lead into halftime.
ASVEL hit the ground running in the second half, with David Lighty hitting a three-pointer his team's first lead, 38-39. ALBA bounced back with 8 unanswered points through Zoosman, Lammers and Olinde for the largest lead until then, 52-44. ASVEL tried to fight back, with Mathews scoring 6 in a row to bring the guests within 58-52 with 3 minutes left in the third quarter. Lo scored a stunning one-legged jump shot to beat the third-quarter buzzer and secure a 65-54 lead for ALBA heading into the last quarter. That is when ALBA's team work paid dividends, with the hosts finding easy points and making the most of their second-chance opportunities to boost the lead to 15 points, 80-65, with under 7 minutes left. ASVEL had no response in the closing stages and ALBA celebrated its 11th win with its fans in its last game of the EuroLeague season.