Brose Bamberg misses chance to move into second spot

Brose Bamberg failed to capitalize on its big opportunity to capture second spot outright on the eighth matchday of the German league, as the team of Head Coach Ainars Bagatskis suffered an 88:92 defeat on the road at Alba Berlin, also as a result of conceding 21 turnovers. Brose Bamberg has thus dropped back into fifth in the table, whereas Berlin is now in second behind FC Bayern Munich.

Whereas Brose Bamberg’s injury worries are diminishing and only one of its professionals – Louis Olinde – is still out, the home side was missing four playmakers (Saibou, Siva, Hermannsson and Ogbe) through injury in the Mercedes Benz Arena. The club from Germany’s capital was forced to rely on its youngsters – and Franz Wagner (aged 17) and Jonas Mattissek (aged 18) each made life tough for Bamberg for 20 minutes thanks to their great commitment. Ainars Bagatskis brought on Bryce Taylor as early as the first quarter and the shooting guard drained two buckets from downtown to make the score 17:13 and 21:18 on his comeback after being out for a year through injury. However, Bagatskis’ team conceded five turnovers in the first period, which Alba exploited to produce a run of eight points without reply and pull 25:31 in front. Bamberg went back ahead at the start of the second quarter thanks to ten points from Nikos Zisis and Stevan Jelovac (35:34), but the lead changed hands a total of 20 times up to the break, at which Bamberg trailed 49:52.

Tyrese Rice had bad luck with his first two shots at the start of the second half, but after his first lay-up Bamberg’s playmaker turned up the heat and drained his next four shots to add ten points in the third period. After trailing 59:65, Bamberg did not allow Berlin to unfurl its fast breaks for a number of minutes thanks to solid defending. During that spell, top scorer Stevan Jelovac (20 points) came into his own and buried two threes to put Bamberg 71:69 ahead. Yet the visitors were not able to pull away, as Berlin always had a reply, as was the case when Nikos Zisis (11 points) added his free throws to make it 76:74: Johannes Thiemann scored on the buzzer to tie the encounter 76:76 at the end of the third quarter. Both teams had more difficulties in offense in the final ten minutes – only Patrick Heckmann and Daniel Schmidt scored to make it 78:76 and 80:79 and, after a barren spell of four minutes, Tyrese Rice (15 points) drained a bucket from beyond the arc to equalize (83:83 with 160 seconds remaining). When Berlin went 83:86 in front with 24 seconds left on the clock, Rice missed his attempted three-pointer on the next attack and Bamberg was forced to adopt a stop-the-clock tactic. However, Berlin made all of its six free throws and so ran out winners.

Ainars Bagatskis commented: “No matter who you play against, it’s very difficult to win when you concede 21 turnovers. We wanted to be vigilant and not lose possession, but that still happened too often. We also let Berlin score 24 points in the paint in the first half. Those are two things that at least sound simple and we ought to have done better. Nevertheless, we were in the game until the end. Small things, an offensive rebound and two unfortunate decisions in offense, then decided the game.”