medi Bayreuth defeats Gießen by the clear margin of 95:80

medi Bayreuth began its third home game in eight days with its familiar starting five of Eric Mika, Adonis Thomas, Kassius Robertson, Kyan Anderson and De’Mon Brooks. But what was new was that the HEROES OF TOMORROW got off to a good start in the encounter on the 23rd game day against GIESSEN 46ers. In particular, it was vastly improved in defense compared with the previous home games against Jena and Ludwigsburg. However, the team of captain Bastian Doreth also performed well in offense. Thanks to wonderful team basketball, seven players were able to get on the scoresheet in the first ten minutes. As a result, medi was even able to take the first period by 23:21 after a last-second shot by Gregor Hrovat.

The HEROES OF TOMORROW were initially able to hold on to their narrow lead in the second quarter. Andreas Seiferth and Nik Raivio came off the bank and made important contributions to that. It was only after the visitors’ Head Coach Ingo Freyer called a timeout midway through the period that medi’s offense began to get bogged down. This was also the strongest spell by the visitors from Hesse. Led on by Brandon Thomas, Larry Gordon and John Bryant, the 46ers chalked up 11 consecutive points to take their largest lead in the entire game (43:36). medi had De’Mon Brooks to thank at the end of the first half that it was able to remain in close contention: He snapped up two important offensive rebounds, made the following points and cut the deficit to 42:46.

The HEROES OF TOMORROW got off to a furious start after the break, recapturing the lead with quick buckets by Kyan Anderson and Kassius Robertson and forcing the visitors to call the next timeout. An evenly matched game then ensued, with neither team managing to pull away. A striking aspect of Bayreuth’s play was that it managed to win very few turnovers (a total of just six), whereas Gießen rebounded better and made more assists. Shortly before the end of the period, the 46ers were again six points ahead, but then Gregor Hrovat and Bastian Doreth drained two threes to tie the score at 67:67 going into the final quarter.

A further bucket from downtown by Bastian Doreth opened the last ten minutes to conclude a 13:0 run by HEROES OF TOMORROW straddling the quarters. And they never surrendered that lead again, but instead kept on stretching it. After four points by Gießen, medi Bayreuth produced an even more impressive run of 15 points without reply. In this spell, the team of Head Coach Raoul Korner turned on a compelling display, especially with its aggressive defending, forcing the visitors to concede a total of 17 turnovers. medi finally ran out deserved winners by 95:80, thanks to its deeper bench and an extremely compact all-round team performance.

Source: www.medi-bayreuth.de