77-68 - Bayern's offense can't prevent third straight loss

After six wins in-a-row the streak in the BBL is broken: The Bayern Basketball team lost 77-68 at the Merlins in Crailsheim on Christmas Sunday, for the Munich team it was the third defeat of the season. Bonn is now (22-4) ahead of the FCBB (20-6) at the top of the standings.

The Bavarians rotated through properly this time, besides the potential starters Lucic, Rubit and Weiler-Babb, coach Trinchieri also had a break. On the other hand, Radosevic, who had surgery on a damaged ankle in the summer, finally made his comeback after an absence of 196 days and was given his first minutes.

But coach Rimac also saw a 30-16 start from the fired-up Merlins (12th), who quickly hit six of their ten threes while his team left a lot to be desired offensively, including from outside. It was Rivers who led Munich to 37-37 with 15 of his 23 points at the end (20th).

Suddenly the attack was cut off in the third quarter, they conceded a 15-4 run and were clearly behind again (55-41/25). The opponent attacked the zone and the FCBB created little and went into the final quarter with a 60-50 deficit after only 13 points scored in the quarter. At 62-58, Sisko conceded his fifth foul (34th), as then so did Walden (75-64/38th). The clearly better three-point ratio (56 to 23 %) spoke clearly for the winner.

Points per quarter Bayern - Crailsheim: 11-22, 26-18, 13-20, 18-17.

Stats: Two-point shooting 53% (FCBB) // 42% (Crailsheim) Three-point shooting: 23% // 56%; Free-throw shooting: 63% // 85%; Rebounds: 36 // 36; Assists: 14 // 18, Turnovers:  6 // 10.

Quotes:

Slaven Rimac, Coach FCBB: "Congratulations to Crailsheim, they were better than us today. I would say they attacked us where they had to. Except for short phases in the second and fourth quarters, we didn't find our offensive rhythm. The defense was good up to a certain point, but we had what I would call a lack of focus in some situations. They hit some threes and we had things that weren't the way they needed to be. They punished our mistakes."   

K.C. Rivers: "We have to find our balance and keep it for 40 minutes. We had a good second quarter, everything after that was an up and down roller coaster. We didn't find anything that worked. My own stats mean nothing if we don't win."

(c): Stickel