The hosts erased a 16-point deficit to stun Joventut
Trento took care of the ball to get comeback win
Dolimiti Energia Trento did an excellent job taking care of the ball and that allowed the defense to hold its own and eventually pull off a surprising come-from-behind victory over Joventut Badalona.
Trento committed only 8 turnovers in registering an 87-85 home win to move to 3-4 in Group A, including a 3-1 record at home.
“A tough win. We don’t have any club in Italy like Badalona who can play with these towers and the way they tried to limit our transitions. Spending fouls, bringing big men inside to avoid layups and shots at the rim,” Trento coach Paolo Galbiati said referring to the Joventut big man duo of Ante Tomic and Artem Pustovyi.
Game Videos
“It’s a nice win but we have to understand that we have to play with that kind of effort every single time. And we have to play our style no matter what because in the first quarter, we slowed down too much and didn’t find a way.”
Galbiati also made special mention of his team’s ball-handling, saying: “We had just 8 turnovers which for us is kind of like a miracle.”
Trento’s offense came into the game ranked 16th in turnovers at 16.3 per game. That failure to maintain possessions is a big reason the Italian side also ranked 16th in scoring at 76.7 points a contest - which Galbiati’s men passed by more than 10 points.
It must be said that Joventut’s defense ranked last in the league in turnovers forced at just 9.8 per game. Trento also took advantage of Joventut’s poor foul shooting, which reared its head in this one. The Spanish side converted only 11 of 19 free throws (57.9%). That is actually quite a bit worse than its average of 69.5% coming into the game - which ranked second to worst in the league.
Another major reason Trento pulled out the win was the improved play of Anthony Lamb and Jordan Ford in the second half. Lamb was limited to 5 points in the first 20 minutes while Ford had just 4 points.
Lamb finished the game with 22 points and Ford tallied 14 points.
“I’m so thankful to Trento for this opportunity. I am very elated right now and have a lot of emotions pumping. But everybody showed us a lot of love down the stretch and gave us the energy to pull it out,” said Lamb.