Spain is the destination for the second part of Munich's extensive away tour: Bayern's basketball players will be guests in Vítória in the Basque Country and in Valencia on the somewhat milder Mediterranean coast on Friday evening and Tuesday respectively in the EuroLeague. After two narrow and unfortunate defeats, the German champions are hoping for their sixth win of the season, preferably against Baskonia. The game starts there on Friday at 8:30 p.m.
Luwawu-Cabarrot in great form
The fact that the trip to Spain this weekend will be interrupted by the BBL duel in Ulm (Sunday, 4:30 p.m./live on Dyn and free on WeltTV) is likely to be taken into account again by TJ Parker's coaching staff (who continues to stand in for Gordon Herbert) in their planning until Tuesday evening. However, load management is a little easier, at least for Friday and Baskonia, as Monday was a day off and Bayern surprisingly had time for recovery and training since Tuesday.
In the 15,000-capacity Fernando Buesa Arena, Bayern can certainly expect a duel between two evenly matched teams. After six close defeats at the start of the season, Vítoria-Gasteiz (3-8) celebrated its first win of the season at home at the end of October (92-85 against Dubai), followed by two more – also at home – against Efes Istanbul and Bologna. Most recently, they were unsuccessful twice on the road against the two teams from Tel Aviv.
Four more away games in a row
The fact that Baskonia is a different, very energetic team at home this season has a lot to do with French forward Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot. The 30-year-old national player is the outstanding player in his second season with the Basques, averaging 19.9 points and a three-point field goal percentage of 48.1 percent (on a good seven attempts). This makes him currently the second-best scorer in the top flight behind Paris' Nadir Hifi (21.4 ppg).
The second pillar is Hamidou Diallo, who played 210 NBA games between 2018 and 2022 (OKC, Detroit). The US forward averages 13.3 points and 4.7 rebounds. Following the early termination of Pablo Laso's tenure, Baskonia's new coach is 41-year-old Italian Paolo Galbiati, who previously coached the EuroCup team Trento for two years.
“Baskonia often plays like a different team at Buesa, where they run the transition, the fast, Spanish game,” says FCBB assistant coach Parker. “We want to get them into the half court and defend intensely as a team, not only against Luwawu-Cabarrot, who is having an exceptional season, but also against the dangerous shooter Howard and their very athletic players like Diallo and Diop.”