Late Tuesday afternoon the basketball players of FC Bayern landed safely and punctually in Berlin, for their penultimate or perhaps last road trip of a long season with 73 games so far. At 20:30 on Wednesday evening, the German champions will meet their hosts Alba in the second game of the final series. Alba want to force the equalizer after the Munich 74-70 victory in Game 1.
MagentaSport will broadcast Game 2 on Wednesday (June 19th) beginning at 20:15. The club channel FC Bayern TV LIVE will also show the game.
The third playoff final will follow next Sunday, June 23rd starting at 18:00. The Audi Dome will again be fully occupied and at present only a small remaining contingent of tickets is available.
"Must play more concentrated on the road"
The Bavarians are drawing a lot of self-confidence from the valuable home win, which has already put Berlin under pressure in what will certainly be a sold-out hall in the capitol city. All the players of head coach Dejan Radonjic are in good health and know that they have even more potential for improvement after a tough win in the first of the best-of-five series. "It was obvious that we didn't play well in the first game and started badly. But Alba is also a very good team," said Managing Director Marko Pesic.
"It is clear that this will be another very hard and intense game," said coach Radonjic after the arrival. "The hall in Berlin will be full, but we know such an atmosphere. We have to focus on the game, the rhythm and the control. There are many things from the first game that we want to keep, for example in defense and rebounding. We're looking forward to this difficult task."
Thanks to a strong finish, the Bavarians won the regular season game in Berlin convincingly 85-75 at the end of April. At that time Center Devin Booker had just returned after his long break and posted seven minutes on the floor. For the American and his colleagues it will also be important to prevent one of Berlin's strengths, offensive rebounding. While Alba had an average of twelve rebounds on the opponent's board during the season (total: 36 rpg), they had seven on Sunday in the Audi Dome (a total of 28-24 for Bavaria). Nevertheless, due to a phase of Munich carelessness, Alba led up until 4:42 minutes before the end with eight points before the FCBB went on a 14-4 run to wrap up the game.
In the 2018 finals the Bavarians won Game 2 in Berlin 96-69. Overall, the FCBB's record in the capital city is eight wins and 13 losses (as well as a tie in the EuroCup quarter-finals).
"We have to play more concentrated on the road in order to win," Bayern captain Danilo Barthel knows. "We want to build on the positive aspects of Game 1 and minimize our mistakes, for example we don't want and won't have 20 turnovers again. If we can do that, we'll certainly have a chance to win. We are ready."
The playoff Finals against Alba Berlin:
- Final 2: Wednesday, June 19th 20:30 (in Berlin)
- Final 3: Sunday, June 23rd 18:00 (Audi Dome)
- Final 4*: Tues, June 25th 20:30 (in Berlin)
- Final 5*: Fri, June 28th 20:30 (Audi Dome)
*=if necessary