The basketball team of FC Bayern lost a tough road game in the EuroLeague by a score of 79-68 to the reigning champion ZSKA Moscow. In front of 6,072 spectators in the Megasport Arena, defensive rebounding was the main reason for the first defeat of the season. ZSKA took a total of 16 balls at the Bayern boards and Moscow defended over 40 minutes excellently, but the Bavarians were still respectable for a long time.
Top scorer for Munich was Greg Monroe, with a double-double of 17 points and 10 rebounds.
The Bavarians will now continue with three home games in a row: First, the German champions will meet Braunschweig in the Bundesliga on Saturday, October 12th, before Bonn will be a guest in the cup round of the last sixteen only two days later on Monday, October 14th. In the premier class, Dejan Radonjic's team will hst Villeurbanne around ASVEL President Tony Parker on Thursday, October 17.
Points per quarter Bayern - ZSKA: 18-22, 22-25, 10-13, 18-19
Stats: Two point shot %: 48 % (FCBB) / 45 (ZSKA); Three point shot %: 30 % / 35 %; Rebounds: 34 / 40; Offensiverebounds: 8 / 16; Turnovers: 11 / 9
FCBB stats: Greg Monroe (17 points/10 rebounds/3 blocks), Nihad Djedovic (12), Danilo Barthel (10/5 rebounds), Maodo Lo (9), Petteri Koponen (7), Vladimir Lucic (6/6 rebounds), Paul Zipser (4), DeMarcus Nelson (2), Leon Radosevic (2 blocks), Diego Flaccadori.
Quotes:
FC Bayern head coach,Dejan Radonjic: "Congratulations to ZSKA on the victory. In the first half, our defense was not good enough to have a really tight game against the EuroLeague winner. After the break it was better, but ZSKA had too many second chances because of the offensive rebounds, which they took advantage of. 16 offensive rebounds against such a strong team doesn't work. We have to understand now that we have to improve for the next games."
Greg Monroe: "ZSKA is a very good defensive team, they played very physically and helped each other well on defense. We have to be more aggressive. It was a tough first road game in the EuroLeague, this league is high class and physical. But we have the team to be better soon. Today we weren't good at rebounding and had too many turnovers. That was the difference."
1st quarter
Maodo Lo, Nihad Djedovic, Vladimir Lucic, Danilo Barthel and Monroe started in the first away game of the EuroLeauge season. The opening quarter was very balanced - difficult shots fell on both sides. On the Bayern side, Captain Barthel opened the scoring with four points to take a quick lead. In the middle of the quarter Lo took over and contributed five of his total nine points. At the end, Moscow held a small lead with a 22-18 score after one quarter.
2nd quarter
Dejan Radonjic's team had to fight more and more often with weak rebounding on defense. The Bavarians allowed a total of nine boards before the break (FCBB: 0). ZSKA started to pull away with four minutes to play in the half and led 43:29. With a 12-2 run was the result. Paul Zipser and Barthel produced a 7-0 run to make sure that the second half would be competitive.
3rd quarter
The Bavarians took this good momentum with them into the third quarter and came to just two points back at 50-48. Especially on defense, the visitors did a good job and only allowed 13 points - but they couldn't take advantage and only scored ten points themselves. The highlight of the game was provided by Monroe, who prevented a Nikita Kurbanov dunk with a beautiful chase-down block . Nevertheless, the Bavarians had to do something big in the final quarter as they were down 60-50 with ten minutes to play.
4th quarter
Already at the beginning of the last ten minutes you could see that ZSKA did not want to their victory taken away. The hosts took a 15 point lead with their first two attacks and though Djedovic and Monroe tried to keep up the attack but a total of 16 offensive rebounds on the side of the favorites prevented a comeback. Despite being 19 points behind in the meantime, the Bavarians fought until the end and finished with a respectable finish even though it was a loss.
Upcoming games
Photo credit: Stickel, EuroLeague
