Group win in World Cup qualification
German youngsters wrestle Finland down
02/27/2023, 8:13 p.m
The German basketball players complete the World Cup qualification with their tenth success in the twelfth game as group winners. In the tight “final” for first place in season J, the team of national coach Gordon Herbert prevails against hosts Finland.
The German basketball players won their last World Cup qualifier. The team of national coach Gordon Herbert also without his NBA stars around Dennis Schröder won in Espoo against hosts Finland with 87:81 (46:43) and thus secured the group victory. However, the ranking has no influence on the World Cup draw on April 29th. Both Germany and Finland were already qualified for the tournament.
The World Championship will take place from August 25th to September 10th in the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia. Then Schröder, Franz Wagner and the other NBA players should be there again. The Euroleague professionals from Alba Berlin and Bayern Munich will then also be available to Herbert. In Finland, captain Johannes Voigtmann was the best German thrower with 23 points.
Herbert sees a significant increase in performance
“Even if the game wasn’t very important for us in terms of sport, it’s a good win,” said the strong Voigtmann. “It was a great game today, for the fans and for us players on the field.” National coach Herbert was also very satisfied. “After the first seven or eight minutes we played better basketball today than against Sweden,” said Herbert. Germany had won against Sweden in Frankfurt am Main on Friday.
In Espoo, where Herbert worked as a coach at the very beginning of his coaching career, the German basketball players struggled at first. Three days after the win against Sweden, there were numerous coordination problems in the team, which was again made up of many young players. In the first two quarters alone, the German team lost 15 turnovers. In the meantime, the Finns pulled away to eleven points (30:19).
Finland doesn’t give up
But the guests didn’t give up and fought back, led by Voigtmann and Karim Jallow. At the break, Germany was suddenly in the lead because David Kramer scored a three-pointer with the half-time siren. Even after the change of sides, the Herbert team initially remained superior and gained up to twelve points in the third quarter (67:55).
But the Finns really wanted to win the group in front of their home crowd and fought back again. In the final quarter, the German lead melted down to one point. In the end, however, Voigtmann secured victory with four converted free throws and thus the perfect conclusion to the qualification. In addition to Voigtmann, David Krämer (16), Jallow (14) and Jonas Richter (10) scored double digits.