No trip home to Munich, but straight on to the 2022 BBL Finals: The Bayern basketball team stood up to the pressure with nerves of steel and moved into the finals series with Alba Berlin. With their third away win (87-74) in the sold-out Hardtberg-Halle of Telekom Baskets Bonn they clinched their way into more basketball. The squad led by head coach Andrea Trinchieri left the team's headquarters at Cologne/Bonn Airport at noon on Thursday and traveled directly to the capital for the start of the eagerly awaited German Clásico, where the defending champions and first seed will be challenged just 46 hours after the end of the game in Bonn.
Tip-off in the arena at Berlin's Ostbahnhof is at 20:30., MagentaSport is live as always. Tuesday (June 14,19:00) the series moves to Munich's Audi Dome, second home game date would be Sunday, June 19, at 15:00.. The road games will be broadcast in a free public viewing on the video cube in the Audi Dome (tickets via the homepage).
„"They are well recovered and the big favorite, play great basketball and have already held up the German Cup. But we will be there with what we have and with a team that can suffer and wants to sacrifice itself for FC Bayern."”
Alba had a week break
Like his players and the vociferous crowd of fans from Munich, Trinchieri was greatly relieved by his team's "mature, grown-up performance" in the deciding game at the Telekom Dome in front of 6,000 enthusiastic Rhinelanders. In view of the enormous effort over five games against an opponent who was on a par for a long time, the Italian feels his men are appropriately placed in the role of challengers. After all, Alba had exactly one week off after its third win away from home against Ludwigsburg (73:67, 100:76, 89:84) to regenerate and study its opponent.
The Berliners have also won their games recently without any problems and in a row; admittedly not "157 times in a row", as Trinchieri marginally exaggerated on Wednesday night. But their last defeat in national competition dates back to the end of March in Chemnitz. After that, 17 victories followed, including two easy 3-0 series in the playoffs over Bamberg and Ludwigsburg. The last time Alba lost was at the beginning of April against Monaco in the EuroLeague, where they were then, unlike Bayern, not involved in the playoffs and still managed to secure pole position ahead of Bonn.
"They are well recovered and the big favorite, play great basketball and have already held up the German Cup," Trinchieri said in Bonn. "But we will be there with what we have and with a team that can suffer and wants to sacrifice itself for FC Bayern. Whereby we don't know who will play, because also today we had some players who were injured. For me, they are the clear favorite, but I wouldn't want to trade my team for any other. (...) We deserved to be in the final because we had a very, very, very difficult season. Just thinking about the fact that our actual backcourt is in Munich and in therapy instead of playing - I know that we only found solutions to these situations because of the great will of my players."
Bavaria is ahead in the statistics
A light evening training session, a meeting on game day, the Munich team won't have much more preparation until the first final game. The main job will be done by the physios, who also kneaded and treated the strained bodies in Bonn until well after midnight. How primarily to stop the Berlin transition, the coaches discuss in their video sessions.
Material enough is present: This season, the Bavarians have already met Alba four times. In the EuroLeague, they won twice with the extended rotation there (62:56 and in Berlin 82:69), as well as away in the BBL (80:73). The last game of the main round, which was no longer relevant for the standings at the time, went to the guests in the Audi Dome with 83:78 points.
So far, the teams have faced each other 64 times: 38 wins went to the FCBB, 24 times Berlin won, and once the game ended in a draw (EuroCup first leg). The classic results by competition from Munich's point of view: BBL 29:20, EuroLeague 5:0, EuroCup one win and one draw, and Cup 3:4.
In the seven playoff meetings so far since 2013, Munich has won six times, Berlin last year (3:1).