The German national basketball team started the European Championship at home with two victories. The performance against Bosnia nevertheless gave cause for self-criticism – especially from the captain.
The DBB team started the game against the supposed underdogs around NBA star Jusuf Nurkic nervously and erratically. In the first two quarters, the bulky centre embodied what his team had planned: aggressive, tough defence and a lot of physicality. “We were surprised by the physicality in the first minutes,” Dennis Schröder (18 points, three rebounds, nine assists) explained the difficult start of the Germans, who were even trailing by eleven points a good two minutes before the break. “Still keeping a cool head and playing simple, that says a lot about us,” praised the DBB captain.
Before the end of the second quarter, the hosts were able to cut the deficit in front of 18,000 spectators in Cologne and then quickly turned the game in their favour with a different body language, tempo and also a lot of aggression. “We matched their physicality,” said Schröder. Johannes Voigtmann had seen “long phases” in sections three and four where it looked “very, very good. “
“That was not so smart” – Instructive victory for the DBB team
Except for a brief period of weakness by the Germans, which brought Bosnia to within six points with 3:41 minutes to go and made the match unnecessarily tense once again. “We thought the game was already over. But the opponent is too good for that. That wasn’t so smart,” admitted Johannes Thiemann, who, as against France, provided important impetus coming off the bench, recording 14 points and five rebounds.
Schröder – who was indeed too stubborn and careless in the final phase – put himself in front of the team, clearly took responsibility: “I didn’t make any good decisions there. I have to play more calmly. I’ll watch it again in the video, but that’s definitely on me.”
In the end, there was nevertheless an important 92:82 victory for Germany, which not only increases their chances of advancing, but should also be instructive. “In a tournament like this, there will also be bad phases,” said Voigtmann. Maybe, the future Milanese added, it wouldn’t look so bad for the Germans “if those were our bad phases today. “
