Bayern lose 63:67 to Partizan

In the final minutes, the ninth win of the season slipped away: in a tough duel between two teams with personnel problems, the Bayern Basketball players had nothing left to give offensively against Partizan Belgrade on Tuesday evening and lost 63:67 (32:34). In front of 10,500 fans, Munich had to do without their leader Andi Obst at short notice, and Stefan Jovic was also missing again due to his head injury. Nevertheless, only seven points in the first quarter and 13 in the fourth were too little.

Without Obst and Jovic

Munich's top scorer called in sick in the afternoon. Without Obst, the team lacked a bit of determination in their finishing, allowing the visitors to hit their first three-pointers and take an 18:5 lead in a fairly unchallenged 15:0 run (8th minute). With only seven points in the first quarter, things could only get better, right?

Partizan continued to shoot well from outside (27:17/15th), with Voigtmann now giving Bayern more space to play. Jessup, Gabriel and McCormack led Bayern back to 26:32 (18th). Lucic already had three fouls at the break, but Bayern closed the gap again thanks to their defense and Hollatz's last sprint to the layup.

Full Boxscore

50:50 after three quarters

After a very unfocused return (34:39), it was Hollatz who scored again. Jessup tied the score and McCormack finally took the lead at 43:41 (27th minute). 

It remained hard work, but Bayern went into the final quarter with vigor. However, the odds did not improve, and just 48 hours after the victory in Chemnitz, the team lacked energy. Partizan now punished mistakes consistently again, 56:61 (37th minute). Bayern, on the other hand, missed too many chances, lacking much more than just fruit in offense that evening.

The Quotes: 

Svetislav Pesic, Headcoach, FC Bayern Basketball: "That was a game in which we never found our rhythm in offense. On the other hand, I congratulate Partizan. We had our chance when we had a positive result at the right moment in the third quarter, leading by two points. But we didn't take advantage of that. In the end, Partizan honestly deserved this victory. We weren't aggressive and confident enough in attack; we should have attacked more. You can see that from the fact that we only had four free throws, not a single one in the decisive last ten minutes. We lacked a bit of freshness today; physically, we didn't perform well. But we've had too many injuries in the last few days and also played in the Bundesliga on Sunday. You need more intensity for a EuroLeague game. Andi (Obst) is in great form at the moment, so of course we miss him. But we had other problems today. (...)

Without three outside players, it's obviously very difficult. And Dimitrijevic played today without any training. We'll keep fighting, the players' response couldn't be better, even if we can't train much. Everyone is very focused. Everything is fine, it's just that today's result was negative.”

Justus Hollatz: “We took too long to get into the game. That's not acceptable; we want to come out with a lot of energy. The start of the second half with three turnovers wasn't good either. And when you have to chase the game the whole time, you can't win. (...) I think we didn't play our plays through and let ourselves be put under too much pressure. But when Andi is there, we have another weapon that is very dangerous. But you can't use that as an excuse.