The home of the biggest rival is usually not an oasis of well-being for an athlete. The situation at Alba Berlin is not quite the same, but certain sympathies for the Rudi-Sedlmayer-Halle are unmistakable. In the past three years, the Berliners have won the championship there in Munich, and in the basketball Bundesliga they have won the last six duels with FC Bayern in their hall.
Alba also prevailed in the sold-out Munich hall on Sunday evening. With the 80:79 (23:27, 21:17, 20:17, 16:18) the German champion remains level with BBL table leader Bonn after defeats. “It’s not a normal win, it’s a big rivalry,” said Alba Jaleen Smith on Magentasport. Best pitchers at Alba were Johannes Thiemann (14 points), Smith (13) and Ben Lammers (12), who secured the Berlin victory with good defense on Cassius Winston’s last throw. “We had our best defender against their best guard and he forced him to take a heavy shot,” Smith said.
Alba was first on the scoreboard through Luke Sikma, but then didn’t find his way into the game for a long time. Even without the three injured or ailing top performers Vladimir Lucic, Andreas Obst and Corey Walden, the Munich team put in a quick 11-0 run and a few minutes later Alba’s coach Israel Gonzalez was forced to take an unusually early time-out when the score was 9:19. The fact that the gap was not even higher was mainly due to Louis Olinde, who was responsible for seven of the nine Berlin points.
The short break was good for Alba. Two three-pointers from Tamir Blatt quickly shortened the lead and the result was an entertaining game in which both teams found good offensive solutions again and again. Towards the end of the attack period, the Berliners kept calm several times and, with all their versatility, shortened more and more. At the break it was 44:44.
After the change of sides, Alba got off to a much better start. Munich didn’t succeed in attacking and the Berliners took advantage of that. This time Bayern’s coach Andrea Trinchieri reacted with a time-out and this also had an effect.
The duel of the dominant German teams in recent years was certainly not top-class for more than 40 minutes, but it was tight as usual. Even if it was only a main lap time with limited meaningfulness in the table, it was clear to the players that nobody likes to lose against their big rival.
“The games against Bayern are always a good indicator of how far we’ve come as a team,” Alba’s national player Johannes Thiemann said beforehand. The encounter in Munich confirmed the progress of the past few weeks.
In the exciting final phase, the duel degenerated into a private duel between Bayern’s Winston (20 points) and Albas Smith (nine points in the last quarter). But the Berliners had the better end on their side. It was the fifth win in a row across all competitions.
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