Basketball: Playoff round of 16 - Coburg lets Game 1 slip out of its grasp

BBC Coburg suffered a narrow 71:72 defeat to Berlin Braves 2000 in the first game of the playoffs in front of its home crowd and now has its back to the wall. After taking an 18-point lead midway through the second quarter, the club from Coburg lost its grip and allowed the visitors from the capital to get back into the game. The BBC's top scorer was point guard Adrian Petkovic with 20 points.

Coburg's Head Coach Patrick Seidel summed up the game as follows: "We started very well against Berlin's man-to-man defense, but as soon as they switched to their zone defense, we found it increasingly difficult to move the ball well and were no longer able to get our tempo into the game. Defensively, our rotations were very good at times, but then we didn't rebound in the decisive phases and were a step too slow here and there. We just have to manage to finish games off and we simply lacked the coolness today. Berlin is experienced, but we'll definitely think about something for Friday and do better."

The BBC got off to a good start to the encounter, as it had done recently. Coburg was able to open up a double-digit gap early on and set the tone until the end of the first half. After a successful three by Kolten Mortensen, the home side led by 18 points three minutes before the break, but Coburg's play broke down after Berlin called a timeout. Although the home side managed to hold on to an 8-point lead going into the break, the Braves continued to dominate the game after half-time. In a nerve-racking encounter, the club from Berlin tied the scores at 61:61 with seven minutes remaining. From then on, a game developed in which neither team wanted to make the decisive mistake. Adrian Petkovic cut the deficit to 71:72 with a three with four minutes remaining, but Coburg was not to score any more points. Both teams missed several opportunities to decide the game in their favor. Gabriel Kuku had the last shot as the final buzzer sounded. But he also missed his target.

The second game of the best-of-three series will take place next Friday evening (April 19) in Berlin. A defeat would put an end to Coburg's playoff dreams. However, a BBC victory in Berlin would mean an all-decisive Game 3 less than 48 hours later, on Sunday, April 21 at 4 p.m. in the HUK-COBURG Arena.