The top teams are picking up speed in the Bundesliga. Alba defeats a so far flawless promoted team. Bayern are in a better mood again 48 hours after a sporting debacle.
Alba Berlin scored an important home victory in the Basketball Bundesliga and won an unusual top match. On Sunday, the Berliners won 98-80 (54-44) in front of 6818 spectators in the Max-Schmeling-Halle against Rasta Vechta, who had been unbeaten up to that point. Initially, however, the Capitals had a hard time, a 6:23 false start initially caused Alba great distress. However, an early timeout by head coach Israel Gonzalez, who had given Matt Thomas, who had been a consistent performer lately, a break, led to a quick reorganization. After 13 minutes of play, Berlin led for the first time and even pulled away with 19 points in the interim later in the third quarter.
“I hope my players learn from this game. We have to give everything from the start in every game, even after a Euroleague doubleheader. This is a big challenge for us every year,” Gonzalez later offered gentle criticism of his team. “But I’m very happy with how my team responded to the bad start. We stepped it up, especially on defense, and were able to turn the game around.”
The Berliners thus have three wins and one loss to their credit. Best scorers were Matteo Spagnolo with 18 and Tim Schneider with 15 points.
Bayern makes amends
FC Bayern München also had no trouble with its mandatory task. The Munich team won clearly 97:62 (54:32) at Hakro Merlins Crailsheim and thus redeemed themselves for the highest defeat in the Euroleague, which they had conceded on Friday with 59:98 in Barcelona.
In the process, head coach Pablo Laso gave some (potential) key players a break (Serge Ibaka, Devin Booker, Niels Giffey and Nick Weiler-Babb). Top talent Ivan Kharchenkov got over 19 minutes of playing time in return.
The Munich team never let any doubts arise, already after six minutes the FCBB was leading 21:8 and kept this dominance for the whole game. Five Munich players, including world champion Andreas Obst (twelve points), scored in double figures. The game was thus decided early after a strong first half from Bayern.
“We had a very difficult week, but we managed to play with a lot of energy from the first minute,” Laso praised his team.
Bamberg also celebrates first win in the league
Just a few days after the convincing victory in the cup round of 16 at the Hamburg Towers, the Bamberg Baskets also took a step out of the crisis in the league. The former series champion defeated last-place Weißenfels with 94:86 (58:43) – both teams had not yet recorded a victory before the matchday. The best scorer for the Bamberg team was Zach Copeland with 20 points. At the same time, the Niners Chemnitz beat BG Göttingen 77-63 (37-28) thanks to top scorer Jonas Richter (17).
