Weakened Brose Bamberg wins against bottom-of-the-table MBC

Brose Bamberg has retained its unbeaten record in the easyCredit German Basketball League. Bamberg chalked up its fourth win out of four games against bottom-placed Mitteldeutscher BC – and the lackluster 88:73 victory over the club from Saxony-Anhalt was a decent showing in view of the many injured players in the squad of Head Coach Ainars Bagatskis.

The home side was again without the trio of Bryce Taylor, Patrick Heckmann and Nikos Zisis. Moreover, Elias Harris warmed up, but was not deployed due to acute groin problems. Nevertheless, Bamberg got off to a furious start: After quickly moving 9:4 in front, the home side produced a run of 10 points without reply with two buckets from downtown by Augustine Rubit and Arnoldas Kulboka and a thunderous slam-dunk by Cliff Alexander to cap them. That made it 19:4 after just six minutes – but then Bamberg seemed to be too confident of victory and slackened in defense. In particular, the visitors exploited their space on the wings to drain open shots from outside and reduce the deficit to 26:20. Arnoldas Kulboka calmed the nerves of Bamberg’s fans with two threes, as his 14 points in the first half helped his side go into the break 40:33 ahead.

After the restart, the home side began strongly, but again became too lax in defense: Playmaker Tyrese Rice and Augustine Rubit quickly stretched the gap to double digits, but suddenly Bamberg left too many gaps at the back – and the visitors capitalized on that to make shots from beyond the arc and produce a 0:7 run. As a result, the score was just 58:54 after 27 minutes. Stevan Jelovac took things into his own hands in offense, adding five points to extend the lead to 63:57 toward the end of the period. And because Bamberg then prevented the visitors from scoring a single point for the next five minutes, the top scorers Augustine Rubit and Jelovac and center Cliff Alexander helped their side build a decisive 74:57 lead. Head Coach Bagatskis rested his key players in the final minutes, with the result that the youngsters Leon Kratzer and William McDowell-White got onto the scoresheet.

Ainars Bagatskis commented: “We started by moving the ball well and I’m also satisfied with my team’s performance in defense. One key factor was that we only conceded five turnovers. We have to take all our opponents seriously and show them respect. I had to wake up my team in the third period and make it clear that a game of basketball lasts 40 and not 20 minutes.”