That would hardly be worth mentioning if Schröder hadn’t gained enormous energy for his game from these fights off the court. His one-handed poster dunk in the second quarter was a show of power, eight assists proving he’s not just the selfish dribbler and three-point shooter his critics see in him. “He’s our leader,” forward Johannes Thiemann made very clear in the ZDF “Sportstudio” when moderator Sven Voss tried to question exactly that. Schröder’s team-spirited performance against Montenegro was proof of his remarkable development so far in the tournament: he’s finally the leader.
Schröder has gained an important insight for himself
After the surprising opening win against France, it seemed at times as if Schröder saw an opportunity in the preliminary round to draw attention to himself through personal highlight plays. Despite a few inaccuracies, it went quite well against outsiders Bosnia and Herzegovina – the NBA star, who was looking for a club, was punished for it against defending champion Slovenia. If you watched Schröder in Berlin on Saturday, you could see that Schröder had put these games on hold. He realized that with this well-rehearsed team, much more than just a few nice highlights is possible – and that a medal will attract even more attention.
This long-term goal faltered again against Montenegro. The DBB team almost gave up a 27-point lead over the underdog. But in the decisive phase, communicator Schröder came into play. In the time-outs, on the pitch, from the bench: the captain whipped his colleagues, put his finger in the wound and directed the team through the last quarter.
Schröder was nevertheless self-critical. “In the end we got the win. Of course I’m happy about that. But we really didn’t play disciplined,” he said afterwards. With a view to a possible quarter-final against the highly favored Greeks around NBA superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo, the captain is combative: “We have shown what we can do. How we defend and how we play on offense. We just have to deliver that. If we do that, we always have a good chance.”
