“A total joy”, “the salt in the soup” etc. – Alba celebrates the championship
A back and forth final is an imposition, but that suited the end of the championship of the Federal Basketball League (BBL) in the quarantine tournament. Ten of 17 Bundesliga clubs put up with the exertion after the corona break and played every other day. The finalists completed a total of ten games. On Sunday, the albatrosses from Berlin prevailed against the giants from Ludwigsburg, who had made it into the finals for the first time ever.
For Alba it was the ninth German championship, the fifth double (after 1997, 1999, 2002, 2003). Already in the final first leg on Friday they were clearly superior to the opponents from the southwest in the first three quarters. No sign of a playfully gripping end of the season. The MHP giants Ludwigsburg were only 19 behind, with 19 ball losses and a throw rate of 38 percent. In the final quarter, Alba eased somewhat, but still had the top scorers in his ranks with Martin Hermannsson and Rokas Giedraitis (14 points each). The uneven game ended 88:65, so the Berliners went into the second leg on Sunday afternoon with a comfortable cushion of points.
The giants, on the other hand, went back to the floor handicapped. Development player Marcos Knight was missing as in the first leg due to injury – diagnosis: foot cracked. The 30-year-old American was a “double-double” expert in all four games of the quarter and semi-finals, achieving double-digit scores and rebounds. Other huge problems: Guard Zamal Nixon and Center Cameron Jackson were also not on the match sheet. Teammate Thomas Wimbush made a warlike statement Magenta Sport just before the game: “It is always heartbreaking when one of our soldiers is not in the fight – but we have to play for him out there.”
It was less martial then. Giant Jaleen Smith scored the first two points. After ten minutes, however, the albatrosses led with 21:11, after 20 minutes the giants were seven points behind. “We play hard to win,” Smith said in the break interview Magenta Sport, “everything is possible”. But Alba was still 67:54 in the front after the third quarter. It actually got tighter in the last quarter of the tournament. The giants came to a point 47.9 seconds before the final siren, but it stayed that way. Final score: 75:74 for Alba.
Standard slogans for standard questions after the final of the final: “I need a few more moments to make this happen,” said Berlin international Johannes Thiemann into the micro of the broadcasting TV station – and further: “It’s a damn weird situation, but we are happy that we made it. ”Despite the failure, Ludwigsburg’s Jonas Wohlfarth-Bottermann was“ very proud ”:“ Nobody said that we would come back again. ”But Alba was the measure of all things in the tournament .
They were just there again, the Berliners. In the past two seasons they reached the finals in the cup, in the championship and in the Eurocup, but all lost them. “Titles are the salt in the soup,” said Berlin managing director Marco Baldi before the last 40 minutes of the season: “It is a total pleasure to win titles.” A year ago, Alba captain Niels Giffey complained: “We want to finally Hardware. «Goal achieved.
An important person is open, that of the 73-year-old Spanish master coach Aíto García Reneses. The contract of the guarantor of success on the sideline expires. “He needs some rest now,” Baldi said caringly. He added a little thoughtlessly: “Reneses can stay with us as long as he wants.”
