Bayern concedes an avoidable defeat with 73-70 loss in Kazan

The Bayern Basketball team is still waiting for its first win after the third gameday of the EuroLeague as the cup winner suffered an avoidable 73-70 defeat at Unics Kasan in Russia on Tuesday. After an overall concentrated first half, the game was flipped on its head for a long time in the second quarter while Kasan scored almost everything. A 13-0 run took the deficit to 67-55 which ultimately cost the FCBB the victory.

The FCBB, which was still short of players - in the first Double-Week of the EuroLeague without Lucic, Radosevic, Obst and Zipser - but still led 35-19 after 19 minutes. Unics stayed in the game via rebounding (38-26) and after the break the guests did not move the ball well and Kasan turned the game around with more energy and aggressiveness (51-50/31). With 44 seconds left, it was once again a Munich thriller at 70-67, but the last shots did not fall.

Bayern travels on to St. Petersburg on Wednesday morning where they are guests on Thursday (19:00) at playoff team Zenit, which lost the Russian EuroLeague derby at ZSKA Moscow 77-67 on Wednesday and thus have a 2:1 record. On Sunday Munich will welcome the Giessen 46ers to the Audi Dome at 15:00 for the third BBL gameday.

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Points per quarter Bayern - Kazan : 19-12, 18-14, 13-19, 20-28.

Stats: Two-point shooting: 36 % (FCBB) // 53 % (Kasan); Three-point shooting:  41 % // 47 %; Free-throw shooting: 91 % // 56 %; Rebounds: 23 // 33 ; Assists: 12 // 13 ; Turnovers: 11 // 16.

Quotes:

Andrea Trinchieri: "Congratulations to Kazan. For the first time, the mentality of my team worries me and I have to change that very quickly now. If a player is not ready for the fight, he's wearing the wrong jersey (...) We had a very poor performance and did not look like a team. In terms of our mentality and being ready to fight, we looked lousy. This was by far our worst game - we can't play like this. We can't throw our chances in the trash like that. There were too many players we didn't control, not Canaan, not Brown, not Hezonja. That's too much if you want to win away in the EuroLeague. (...) I hope that now we develop the strong desire to fight back."

Darrun Hilliard: "This is a very tough defeat. This was a game we needed to win. We started well, but I wish I had words for what I feel now. The good thing about sports is that it goes right on, against another team. Either we fight back now or we retreat with our heads hanging. We already have our backs to the wall a little bit and there are exactly two paths we can take now. We made a commitment here at Bayern and now we all have to look in the mirror and take responsibility. I'm sorry for the fans that we didn't walk out of here with the win we needed."  

Kasan head coach, Velimir Perasovic: "We found our energy and our tough defense especially in the second half. We also hit tough shots in the final minutes. We had problems with turnovers throughout and only got our concentration under control towards the end. It's like so often in basketball: if you work hard, you play well."