Albas Malte Delow (l) fights against Demetrius Conger from ratiopharm Ulm for the ball
Photo: dpa/Andreas Gora
Maodo Lô is not just a good basketball player. The German international in the service of Alba Berlin is also a very humble person. When asked about the reasons for Alba’s 92:78 success, with which the Berliners equalized their semi-final series against Ulm to 1-1, Lô pointed out the 1000 fans who had a game in the arena at Ostbahnhof on Tuesday evening for the first time in many months may accompany. “The fans gave us a great start. So we could go straight into the game with intensity. It was a special game after the long break, ”said the builder.
In fact, Alba had taken control early and was leading by 28:18 after the first quarter. The lead continued to grow until half-time, but as in the lost first semi-final, Alba threatened to gamble it away again in the final quarter. When the Ulm team scored nine points in a row eight minutes before the end, Lô came back on the floor, stole the ball from his opponent Per Günther twice, converted a three-point throw and ended the following 12-0 run himself with a lay-up. The game was decided and Lô was the best man on the field with 20 points. But self-praise is not his way. So better: Cheers to the fans!
His performance was particularly important for the injured Berliners, as Peyton Siva, one of the most important players in this position, had failed. So it was up to Lô to provide new energy and prevent the next break-in. “We played consistently today. We couldn’t give up another tour like that, ”he said.
Coach Aíto García Reneses reminded his team of this lesson several times that evening. »At half-time the coach said again:› Don’t let them get there again! Stay aggressive! ‹We succeeded in doing that,« said Center Ben Lammers after the game, which was a very special one for the American. He had never played in front of so many people since moving to Berlin. Thanks to a pilot project, Alba was now able to exceed the 1000 mark for the first time in the pandemic. “Everyone’s tired at the end of this long season. But suddenly we have people here who distract you from it. That definitely helped, «says Lammers.
Even 14,000 fans fit into the hall, which therefore still looked very empty on Tuesday. But if you are used to complete silence like the basketball players in the past few months, “the 1000 sounds a lot louder than usual,” said Alba’s captain Niels Giffey. “You see the euphoria in everyone who comes back for the first time. Everyone has a gossip card in their hand and nobody looks at the cell phone. Everyone was there from start to finish. “
Semi-final game number three is already on this Thursday, but this time in Ulm. And Berlin’s 74-year-old coach wants to quickly recapture the euphoria among his basketball players by the start of the game. “You shouldn’t lose the first game in a playoff series. Because then you usually lose the series. Even if you immediately equalize how we did it. This is what the statistics show. I’ve seen thousands of playoff games and I can only confirm them, “said Aíto. So he warned “not to be too happy,” after all, the people of Ulm are now working on new strategies on how they can do it better than on Tuesday. “We have to do that too, because everything wasn’t going well for us either. We mustn’t let up. “
With his playmaker Maodo Lô, the coach doesn’t have to worry about that. He also expects “a difficult game, especially when fans are now allowed in Ulm”. Until Wednesday afternoon you couldn’t hear anything like that from Swabia, which should make Alba Berlin’s Center Ben Lammers a little sad: »I would much rather play in front of thousands of people booing me than again in front of empty seats. It’s a lot more fun. “
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