Alba celebrates an important away win in the battle for the German basketball championship. Nevertheless, Berlin’s sports director warns against Bayern – and reminds us of a less than encouraging statistic.
Despite the away win at FC Bayern, Alba Berlin clearly rejects the role of favorite in the final series of the Basketball Bundesliga. The capital city team won 79:70 in Munich and now have two home games against their big rivals ahead of them.
“It will be very, very difficult. Bayern have incredible players and an incredible coach,” said Berlin coach Israel Gonzalez. When asked whether the situation in the best-of-five series had changed when the score was 1:1 and whether Alba now had the psychological advantage, the Spaniard answered clearly: “No, not at all.”
In the next two games on Wednesday (8:30 p.m.) and Friday (6:00 p.m./both Dyn) in Berlin’s Uber Arena, Alba can win the championship title with two wins – the same applies to Bayern, of course. Berlin’s sports director Himar Ojeda warned against relying on their own arena and the home fans: “This is my eighth year at Alba. To be honest, they’ve beaten us most of the time in our hall. I don’t think they’ll be particularly impressed playing away. I expect Bayern to be the best they’ve ever been.”
In fact, home advantage has not played a major role in encounters with Bayern in the Ojeda era since February 2016: out of a total of 16 games at Berlin’s Ostbahnhof, Bayern won ten. During this time, Alba and Bayern met in five playoff series – and Munich won at least once away in each of them.
Bayern: Always believe in our chances
In order to celebrate away from home again this time, Bayern must improve on the second game. Star coach Pablo Laso’s team made far too many mistakes from the second quarter onwards, especially from the three-point line, and allowed the opponent too many rebounds. In addition, the cup winners were unable to get a handle on Berlin’s ex-NBA pros and top scorers Matt Thomas (21 points) and Sterling Brown (17).
But the Munich team want to shake off their frustration quickly in the 48 hours until game three. “No matter who we play against, we always believe in our chances,” said Bayern point guard Nick Weiler-Babb on broadcaster Dyn. “That’s how we’re going to approach it, regardless of how this game turned out.”
Source: Stern
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