Fenerbahce caught fire early against ALBA
Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul topped ALBA Berlin 101-86 at home on Friday evening. Lately, Fenerbahce had struggled to score early in its games, but it fixed its problems in Round 23.
Fenerbahce led 31-27 at the end of the first quarter, by far its best scoring performance in a while. Coach Dimitris Itoudis's team was coming off consecutive losses in which the team had struggled early, trailing 25-12 after 10 minutes in Round 21 against LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne and being down 10-24 against Olympiacos at the end of the first quarter in Round 22. The last time it got a 4-point lead or higher after 10 minutes was against ALBA in Round 12.
Its first-quarter scoring record this season was 26 points in Round 5 against Anadolu Efes Istanbul. Johnathan Motley had 11 of his team's 31 first-quarter points against ALBA. Fenerbahce continued playing with a lot of rhythm, as its 57 first-half points are the club's best mark since scoring 62 it recorded against Darussafaka Istanbul in 2016. It got 81 points after three quarters, its highest score in the opening 30 minutes since the 2020-21 season.
All that led to a comfortable lead, and Motley talked about it after the game. "We just wanted to focus on starting better that we have been. Lately, we have been losing games based on bad starts, and our second and third quarters are pretty good," Motley explained after the game. "So we just really wanted to start good today, and I think we did a good job at that."