The Basque side is now 3-0 at Buesa Arena
Baskonia dominates ALBA 80-57 to remain perfect at home
Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz rebounded from its loss in Round 4 with a dominant 80-57 victory over ALBA Berlin to remain perfect at home this season. The Spanish side, which lost 76-69 at LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne in the last game, took control of the home showing against ALBA with a 15-0 run to close the third quarter for a 3-2 record - including 3-0 at the Buesa Arena.
Markus Howard led the way in the win with 26 points including 7 three-pointers and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot had 11 points. Martin Hermannsson’s 16 points were not enough to keep ALBA from falling to 1-4.
Game Videos
Baskonia came out firing from long range with triples from Kamar Baldwin and Luwawu-Cabarrot in taking a 10-1 lead. ALBA needed more than 2 minutes to score its first basket. Another triple from Luwawu-Cabarrot and a Donta Hall jumper increased the host’s lead to 22-11. And the score was 24-13 after 10 minutes.
Baskonia added the first 4 points of the second quarter for an 11-2 run spanning the periods and a 28-13 lead before Hermannsson tallied ALBA’s first points of the quarter after almost 3 minutes played. Nikos Ragkovopoulos was the next Baskonia player to hit from deep as the advantage grew to 20 points - 35-15. Hermannsson and Justin Bean both scored two baskets as ALBA fought to trim the margin to 39-26 at the break.
ALBA started better out of the locker room with Hermannsson and Bean hitting three-pointers and a Wetzell dunk making it 42-36. Howard responded with 2 triples to re-establish a 12-point lead. ALBA managed to trim the gap to 8 only to see Howard and Ragkovopoulos drain back-to-back triples and Baskonia led 56-40. Howard added a four-point play and his fifth triple of the quarter and Baskonia was up 63-40 after 30 minutes.
After Howard started the fourth quarter with a basket, ALBA started another run of 3-12 to shorten the deficit to 68-52 with 5:31 minutes to go. But Luwawu-Cabarrot and Howard hit from deep at the other end and the Baskonia defense kept ALBA scoreless for almost 3 minutes to end all doubts.