ALBA's reserves outscored the team's starters 62-35 in snapping a losing skid
Production from bench helped ALBA play hard for 40 minutes

The old basketball adage goes: a team has to play a full 40 minutes to win the game. One of the big reasons ALBA Berlin was able to beat Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz and snap a four-month home losing streak was because the bench provided a massive spark.
ALBA’s reserves scored 62 points in a 97-90 victory over Baskonia in which the starting five tallied 35 points.
“Most important was playing a complete 40 minutes. We really haven’t done that much this season. To win in the EuroLeague, you have to play a complete 40 minutes and I think for the most part we did that tonight,” said Matt Thomas, who came off the ALBA bench to score a game-high 21 points. “We competed really well on the defensive end. Ninety points is still too much but Baskonia is a great offensive team. Things were clicking for us offensively, scoring 97 points.”
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Gabriele Procida added 13 points as a reserve while Yanni Wetzell chipped in 11 points as back-up big man.
“The difference was how we were playing defense. On offense we were a little bit freer in our heads because we knew we did the job on defense,” said Procida.
ALBA was playing its first game under new head coach Pedro Calles, who took over the team just one day earlier.
“The guys were focused on the point of emphasis that we made in one practice. We couldn’t do a lot. This is what I asked of them: just execute the game plan on a consistent basis. The game plan maybe was not the best but the most important thing was the level of execution. And they did a great job,” said Calles, who replaced Israel Gonzalez as ALBA’s playcaller on the sidelines.
ALBA picked up its first win at home since November 12 - a stretch of eight consecutive losses.
“It feels good. We needed this win for the ambience and all the fans. I think we can start a great culture from this one. We need to keep building with this mentality, with this talking,” added Procida.