Basketball Bundesliga: Brose Bamberg wins in Hamburg

With a strong performance over 35 minutes, Brose Bamberg fought their way to victory away at Hamburg Towers, clearly prevailing 87-75 at the Eurocup participant. Head coach Oren Amiel's signature is becoming increasingly clear despite the 2:5 balance, the team visibly more stable on defense and more confident offensively.

With 4:14 Bamberg made a false start in the first five minutes, but Amiel called the Bamberg boys into timeout and told them to watch their rebounding. As a result, the guests acted much more concentrated in front of 1800 fans, allowed neither points nor offensive rebounds from Hamburg until the end of the quarter and took a 16:14 lead at the end of the quarter after six strong points from Patrick Heckmann with a tip-in from Christian Sengfelder. Akil Mitchell completed the 14:0 run in the first attack of the second quarter, before Hamburg countered once more and Bamberg trailed for the last time 21:23. Time and time again Amiel, especially center Mitchell, let the ball-carrying Hamburg playmakers attack with his long arm span, and the guests won some of the 10 balls this way. And thanks to two threes by top scorer Omar Prewitt (19 points), they quickly pulled away to 39:32. Tomas Kyzlink increased the lead to 44:34 at the break.

Bamberg continued to play just as concentrated after the change of sides: only in the middle of the third quarter did the Hamburg team push the Bamberg lead back below ten points (50:43), Kyslink straightened it out in the direct counterattack with a basket plus bonus free throw. With four free throws in a row by Shannon Scott and a fastbreak scorer by Prewitt, Bamberg was up by 15 (65:50) shortly before the end of the quarter, but Hamburg took advantage of two small defensive lapses to score five points in 30 seconds (65:50). Before the momentum tipped, however, Prewitt converted a three-pointer, Kenneth Ogbe followed up with a basket, and the Amiel team was again ahead by 15. The match winner Akil Mitchell was allowed to set the final point for Bamberg: First he stole the ball from Hamburg's Seth Hinrichs during a throw-in, then he slammed the ball through the net with a "windmill dunk" - no Bamberg player had dared to do this spectacular dunk, which is difficult in a real game, for years. This 87:68 was also the highest lead of the game, the only downer was the 0:7 run of the Towers in the last 90 seconds.

Oren Amiel (head coach Brose Bamberg): "This is one of the toughest places to play for a guest. I know Hamburg was missing an important player due to injury, but that shouldn't diminish our win here. We played, except for the first five minutes, the basketball we wanted to play. We gave everything, so that a great victory jumped out for us.

The Franconian derby against s.oliver Würzburg scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 08, 2022, was canceled due to the Corona quarantine of the Lower Franconians. The next game is the return match against Merlins Crailsheim on 16.01.2022.