Brose Bamberg captures 75:65 win on the road after a furious final spurt

Brose Bamberg has chalked up its second away win in succession in the Champions League and fourth win in a row across all competitions with a 75:65 victory at Montakit Fuenlabrada on Wednesday evening thanks to a furious final spurt. It also captured the better aggregate from the two encounters with the Spanish club and is now third in the table, two wins ahead of fifth place – and only the teams finishing fourth and above qualify for the last sixteen.

It was a game dominated by the defenses, especially in the first half, and so low-scoring one. After trailing 0:5, Bamberg had to wait almost four minutes to get off the mark. A bucket from downtown by Patrick Heckmann (11 points) to make it 3:5 broke the spell over Head Coach Ainars Bagatskis’ players and, after Tyrese Rice contributed his first seven points, Bamberg snatched a narrow 16:15 lead by the end of the period. Bamberg was able to open up a slight gap thanks to four further points in a row by Rice (23:18), but after Augustine Rubit (11 points) put his side 30:24 in front, Bagatskis’ players let themselves become too disgruntled with the referees’ decisions and the Spanish club capitalized on numerous free throws to make it 32:31. Elias Harris added a lay-up shortly before the buzzer to put Bamberg ahead by 34:31 at half-time.

After the break, however, Bamberg allowed its grip on Fuenlabrada’s playmaker Francisco Cruz to slip. The Mexican player, who inflicted the painful 88:89 defeat on Bagatskis’ team in the first encounter with his three at the death, turned the game around with eight points in a row. As a result, Fuenlabrada led for almost all of the third period, but at most only by three points (50:53) thanks to the stiff resistance of, in particular, Patrick Heckmann and Elias Harris (6 points). Since Bamberg’s defense was far more focused at the start of the fourth period, the visitors were able to prevent Fuenlabrada from scoring for more than three minutes. In the meantime, Bryce Taylor and Stevan Jelovac with three-pointers gave their side a 58:53 lead, but Bamberg was not able to hold on to it. The Spanish club produced two strong minutes of play to move back ahead (62:63), but then Tyrese Rice took over complete control of the game: The American player added a lay-up, jump shot and three in the space of one minute to chalk up seven of his total haul of 26 points, put Bamberg eight points in front (73:65) with 50 seconds to go and so decide the encounter. And unlike in the earlier game between the two, when Bamberg squandered an 82:74 lead with 49 seconds remaining, Bagatskis’ players kept completely calm and focused in front of the away crowd, did not let the Spanish side impose its fast play on them and managed to play out the game securely and win by 75:65 thanks to four free throws by Patrick Heckmann.

Ainars Bagatskis commented: “It was a good game from us for almost the whole 40 minutes. We wanted to operate from a solid defense and above all take Cruz out of the game. We managed to do that by and large. Fuenlabrada is a talented team. But at the end we made a number of crucial stops and also had Tyrese Rice. It’s a wonderful win.”