The cup winners from Munich beat Hamburg Towers in front of a record crowd of 12,000 in extra time. Alba Berlin provides shooting support with success in the top game against Chemnitz. The BBL on Sunday
The FC Bayern Munich basketball team have regained the lead in the Bundesliga. The German cup winners defeated ninth-placed Hamburg Towers 81:80 (73:73, 38:34) in front of a record crowd of 12,000 spectators in the Hanseatic city in overtime on Sunday. The previous leaders Niners Chemnitz then had to concede defeat to third-placed Alba Berlin by 79:84 (35:39) in the evening and so were not able to overtake the Bavarians again.
In the weekend’s top game in front of 5,000 spectators in the Chemnitz Exhibition Hall, Sterling Brown proved to be Berlin’s top scorer with 18 points, while Jeff Garrett (15) and Kevin Yebo (14) were the home side’s most accurate marksmen. Alba, which had narrowly lost its Euroleague duels with Real Madrid and in Istanbul during the week, needed until the second quarter to get into the game and gain the upper hand. The club from Saxony kept pace in the thrilling encounter, but was no longer able to take the lead, despite equalizing at one stage and Aher Uguak bringing his team to within a point with 20 seconds remaining.
In Hamburg, Brae Ivey had forced overtime with a three-pointer 33 seconds before the end of regular time. Nick Weiler-Babb missed the following long-range shot for the favorites. Aljami Durham had another overtime spell in his grasp in the dramatic encounter, but his attempted lay-up was blocked shortly before the end. Munich’s top scorers were Isaac Bonga and Elias Harris with 14 points each, while William Christmas (18) and Vincent King (17) were the best scorers for the North Germans.
Bayern are showing signs of fatigue
After the two defeats in the Euroleague in Valencia on Wednesday and at home against Maccabi Tel Aviv on Friday, Munich coach Pablo Laso’s offense found it difficult to get into the game against the opponents’ compact defense. The favorites fought their way into a double-digit lead for the first time in the final quarter, but Hamburg was able to reduce it again. Devin Booker, Danko Brankovic and Andreas Obst were missing through injury; the other Bayern players were noticeably tired.
Hamburg had moved to the large arena at the Volksparkstadion to mark their tenth anniversary and attracted a bigger crowd than Dirk Nowitzki’s national team, which had achieved the previous Hamburg record of 10,925 spectators in a test match against Canada in 2006.
