Chris Jones sealed the win for Valencia in Berlin

2023-01-26T22:07:26+00:00 2023-01-26T23:20:08+00:00.

Bojan Brezovac

26/Jan/23 22:07

Eurohoops.net
Foto:Euroleague

Chris Jones and the rest of Valencia hit all the crucial free throws to get a big win in Berlin against ALBA

By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net

While the biggest game of the night was Real Madrid vs Barcelona in round 21 of the Turkish Airlines Euroleague, the clash in Berlin was a real treat for the fans. A fast-paced game ended with Valencia‘s (11-10) win over ALBA (6-15), as the home side could not stop Chris Jones in the final minutes 94-88.

Jones was cold-blooded from the free-throw line, scoring all seven attempts for a total of 16 points. A noteworthy detail is that Valencia hit all 13 free throw attempts to finish out the game. Jared Harper added 20 points.

We played against a team that plays great basketball. They have a good coach and it’s difficult to win here. Neither team played defense in the start of the first half. We scored a lot of points and kept going. Normally we would go down a little. We played good defense for some minutes in the third quarter and better in the last quarter, especially the last three or four minutes. In the end, we found a way to score and avoided their offensive rebounds which we suffered from most of the game. They only had one [offensive rebound] in the last quarter and that was one of the keys that we could finally win”, said coach Alex Mumbru.

For Alba, Maodo Lo scored 25 points and was by far the best player for the home side.

The game started with a bang. While both teams tried their best on defense, the offense was the story of the first half. Excellent execution by both teams from almost every position had ALBA shooting 52.4% on two-pointers and 42.9% on three-pointers while Valencia was hitting 65.0% on two-pointers and 50.0% on three-pointers. ALBA’s Maodo Lo was unstoppable scoring 15 points in just 11 minutes.

Then, it was a back-and-forth battle throughout the second half but it seemed like Valencia could end things right in the opening minutes in the fourth quarter. With a scoring run, the Spanish side was up six points (79-73) with under five minutes to go. But in a EuroLeague game, you can never celebrate too early.

Ben Lammers scored and evened out the score (81-81) with just over two minutes left, but Valencia had an answer from Kyle Alexander, Chris Jones, and Jared Harper who managed to pull out the win for the Spanish team even though Alba was fighting till the last second, staying perfect from the free throws line.

Congratulations to Valencia for the win. They are playing really good. It’s a team I like a lot and it’s nice to see them playing well. For my team, we fought again. We tried with everything we have inside. But in the end, I feel sometimes we need a little bit of luck in some situations, some details, some little things during the game that in the right moment don’t happen or happen. We just need to keep working and doing our things and try to improve“, ALBA Berlin head coach Israel Gonzalez said.

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