Champions League: Brose Bamberg captures important victory on the road at CEZ Nymburk

Brose Bamberg has won the first of its three away games in a row in the Champions League: The team of Head Coach Ainars Bagatskis maintained the upper hand by the narrow margin of 84:78 in Prague against the Czech champions CEZ Nymburk thanks to a strong final period (22:13) and so avoided slipping into the bottom half of the table in Group C.

Bamberg endeavored from the outset to put the two straight defeats against Jerusalem and Berlin behind it. Although Nymburk was 1:5 ahead after 40 seconds, Bamberg prevented the Czech club from taking easy shots on the next four attacks and itself produced a run of nine points without reply through Heckmann, Zisis, Jelovac and Rubit to move 10:5 in front. The strong Augustine Rubit and Elias Harris even stretched the gap to 23:14, but after that Bamberg’s concentration waned noticeably, above all in defense. Nymburk closed the deficit to 23:20 by the end of the period and retook the lead midway through the second quarter (32:37). Bamberg relied too greatly on solo actions in offense instead of combination play, but all the same Nikos Zisis added five successive points to reduce the gap to 43:46 at half-time.

Elias Harris (13 points) recaptured the lead for Bamberg after the break (50:48), but that was followed by a strong spell by the home side, in which everything went badly for Bagatskis’ team: In the space of 180 seconds, Nymburk exploited Bamberg’s great weakness, namely defending against shots from outside. Bamberg rotated poorly in defense four times in succession and the Czech team found its free-standing shooters at the arc four times and it buried all four three-pointers. That left the visitors trailing by 52:60 midway through the third period and forced Bagatskis to call a timeout in which he reoriented his players. Elias Harris broke the spell and drained a bucket from downtown to spark a comeback by Bamberg. Bryce Taylor likewise added a three and Bamberg was back in contention at the end of the period (62:65). Stalwart Nikos Zisis (14 points) reinjected calm into Bamberg’s build-ups, especially in the final period, regained the lead for his side with a lay-up (68:67) and often set up Augustine Rubit (22 points). Top scorer Rubit could seldom be stopped by Nymburk and his seven points in the final ten minutes and three of his total of five steals deservedly put Bamberg on the road to victory.

Ainars Bagatskis commented: “We were well prepared for Nymburk and knew they are inattentive in defense now and again. We exploited that in offense. After a good start, we lost our rhythm, but I’m happy about the second half and especially the final period. We were able to stabilize our defense there. In the end our experience ensured we always kept calm.”