Alba Berlin’s Champions League journey ends in the quarter-finals. The Bundesliga club suffered a dramatic defeat against defending champions Unicaja Malaga after extra time. Before that, a furious comeback led by Jack Kayil had succeeded in the fourth round.
The game began as fiercely contested as the first encounter had ended, with Alba getting off to the better start. Roberts stretched the home side’s lead to 9:3 midway through the first period. The Albatrosses benefited in particular from the many turnovers by the Spanish club in this phase of the game.
Nothing changed in the second half. Malaga remained unusually pale in offense, while Berlin was only able to capitalize moderately. Despite hitting just 3/19 threes in the first half, Duarte (13, 6/10) was able to cut the deficit to -2 before the break (36:34).
Kayil leads Alba’s furious comeback
The German club took revenge for that immediately after the break, which Duarte opened with a successful bucket from downtown. The Spaniards’ spell now seemed to be broken and their offense was much more fluid. And things were also going well from downtown. Kendrick Perry (11, 4/11) drained three threes in succession for Alba. The visitors went into the final quarter (49:60) with a lead of +11.
And Alba failed to muster a comeback there for a long time. Instead, Malaga picked up where it had left off and raced 16 points ahead at one stage.
The turning point came from Jack Kayil of all people, who had had a pitch-black evening up to then, but now produced what was probably one of his best performances in a Berlin jersey. Kayil scored nine points in the ensuing 19:3 run by Berlin, including the final five to equalize. It became dramatic in the final seconds when Kayil drew free throws with his side trailing by two points, missed the first and then deliberately missed the second. However, the teenager grabbed his own rebound and made another free throw. This time, they were enough to equalize and force overtime.
Berlin too unimaginative in overtime
The visitors seemed to have woken up from their deep slumber. Tillie drained a three just twelve seconds after the restart and Kayil replied with a difficult shot from deep mid-range. Apart from the 19-year-old, however, little went Berlin’s way and so Unicaja pulled away again. However, Bean’s (8, 3/6) sign of life was too little and came too late.
As a result, Alba Berlin was eliminated early despite putting up a great fight twice against the defending champions. Alongside Rytas Vilnius, Unicaja Malaga is the second of a total of four teams to have booked their ticket for the Final Four in Badalona. This will be held from May 7 to 9.
