ALBA Berlin crashed the offensive glass and the home team’s rebounding prowess played a major role in its 87-78 victory over Panathinaikos OPAP Athens in a Round 19 makeup game.
Telling numbers: Crashing offensive glass brings ALBA victory
ALBA won the rebound battle 37 to 34, but grabbed 16 offensive rebounds to 8 for Panathinaikos. The 16 offensive boards were 3 off ALBA’s single-game club record and Coach Israel Gonzalez’s men turned them into 12 second-chance points to 9 for Panathinaikos.
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About the rebounds, Christ Koumadje, who like Johannes Thiemann grabbed 4 offensive boards, said: “They were really important, especially going against [Georgios] Papagiannis. He’s the top rebounder in the league, so that was an assignment for all of us - to crash the boards, offensively and defensively - and as a team, we did a great job.”
It could have been expected that the game would be decided on offensive rebounds because ALBA came into the contest having taken the fourth-most offensive rebounds with 10.7 per game. And Panathinaikos had allowed 11.4 offensive rebounds per game, which was last in the league.