Bayern extend their lead in the standings again

The FC Bayern Munich basketball team successfully took revenge for the cup loss against the Telekom Baskets and won the BBL duel on Sunday evening 93-85. The German champions thus extend their lead in the standings to six points again due to the Ludwigsburg loss in Giessen.

Coach Oliver Kostic's team started well after the team's first BBL defeat of the season the previous week and led 63-39 in the middle of the third quarter. But Bonn countered against the unfocused hosts with a 19-0 run and came back to within three, 66-63. After that, however, the FCBB was no longer in danger, shining in the final phase with ten assists (28 in total) and a strong Greg Monroe (22 points and 11 rebounds). But 19 offensive rebounds by the guests and 15 Munich turnovers made it too hard for Bayern.   

After the EuroLeague road game in Milan (Friday, 31 January, 21:15), the derby against Würzburg in the Audi Dome takes place two days later (Sun, 2 February, 15:00).

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Points Per quarter Bayern - Bonn: 26-7, 25-24, 11-25, 31-29.

Facts & Figures - Two-point shooting: 70% (FCBB) // 40% (Bonn); Three-point shooting: 39% // 32%; free-throw: 75% // 82%; rebounds: 39 // 39; assists: 28 // 15; turnovers: 15 // 11th - Injured: Vladimir Lucic (foot injury), Zan Sisko (adductor problems) and Leon Radosevic (regeneration).

Quotes:
Oliver Kostic, head coach Munich: "Today the team showed two faces. In the first quarter it looked like we wanted to play basketball: with a lot of physical strength and energy and offensively good decisions. But then we had an empty third quarter, already at the end of the first half we had problems with rebounds and turnovers. In the third quarter we gave up control of the offense and our defensive rebounds and helped the opponent to gain self-confidence. Bonn made the best possible use of this to score 19 points. They had 19 offensive rebounds, we had 15 turnovers. We have to improve that in the future and control the pace throughout the game, then the game will take a different direction for us. We won but we have to improve the mentioned points in the future.

Thomas Päch, head coach Bonn: "The first quarter was hard to digest, Bavaria came out with a lot of intensity and energy. We had problems to work out a good shot at all. Then running after a 7-26 deficit is of course difficult. But nevertheless my team showed a lot of character and courage and then played well for seven minutes in the second quarter and the last as well. Especially the second half was good. But we have to understand that you have to play four quarters at a good level.

Greg Monroe: "In the third quarter we weren't focused enough, the guys from Bonn surprised us with a run. But in the fourth quarter we worked very well as a team and moved the ball skillfully and quickly. That way we found the open players and got easy shots. We will now understand and coordinate better and better in every training session and in every game to get better and better".

1st quarter
Maodo Lo, Nihad Djedovic, Paul Zipser, Danilo Barthel and Greg Monroe formed the starting lineup of coach Oliver Kostic. Both teams were a little bit in Sunday mode and took it quite leisurely at first. After five minutes the Reds were 12-4 in the lead. The Munich team defended well and a spectacular block by Mathias Lessort caused a murmur to escape the crowd. Coponen hit a three to take the lead to 20-4 with two minutes to play in the first quarter.  Lessort extended the run to 15-0 with a dunk and Bonn coach Thomas Päch asked for the second time-out. Often it does not happen that a team leads with 20 points already in the first quarter but a tip-In from Lessort made this a reality. After the first quarter the Munich team was leading 26-7.

2nd quarter
Bonn came out of the quarter break with much more bite and scored six fast points, while captain Barthel kept up with five points of his own. The Bonners tried to force Bayern out of the rhythm with a press defense, and to some extent they succeeded. Then came a three from Alex King to take a 33-18 lead with five to play in the half.  Shots from deep are a tried and tested means against zone defense, but the Bayern shots did not really want to go in and the lead sank to eight points. But suddenly the spell broke and Zipser and Lo each sank a triple forcing Bonn to immediately switch back to man coverage. The 14-5 spurt brought the lead of the Munich team back into a comfortable range - 51-31.

3rd quarter
Munich acted extremely clever and fast against the Bonn defensive variations, and they were also on their toes on defense as the lead grew. The fans were offered a few highlights like an alley-oop by Barthel but Bonn showed character and sought salvation from beyond the arc. Bayern made too many mistakes on offense and Bonn cleverly exploited the weak phase with cheeky 17-0 run of their own. The Munich team remained without a basket for four and a half minutes and the lead had shrunk to six points, 62-56.

4th quarter
Greg Monroe finally made sure to put Bayern back on the board but of course the Bonners had gotten a taste for it now. Their strongest play, Branden Frazier, could hardly be stopped and scored another three, to get within three points. Bayern's point guard, TJ Bray put his colleagues in the best possible positions and Monroe scored for a 73-65 lead with six to play. The game was now exciting and thrilling, and the Munich team fought to avoid another rude awakening against the visitors. Monroe was the "Go-To-Guy" of the last quarter: In the front he scored his eleventh point in this section of the game, and also dominated on the defensive boards.  Paul Zipser's triple for a 91-78 lead was the definitive decisive bucket 96 seconds before the end and even the strong and persistent Bonners could do nothing to remain in the game. In the end Bayenr ended up with the 15th victory in 16 BBL games.

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Photo credit: Stickel, Eirich, Rauchensteiner