Sunday June 13th 2021
Tenth title for the Berliners
Alba masterfully defeated the Bayern trauma
The black series against FC Bayern is over: Alba Berlin is crowned German champion in basketball. The defending champion wins in Munich and thus decides the best-of-five series for himself. It is the tenth title for the Berliners.
Alba Berlin ended its black series against FC Bayern on the sixth attempt and won the German basketball championship for the tenth time. The defending champion celebrated an 86:79 (38:30) victory in the fourth final game in Munich and won the best-of-five series 3-1.
“We had the energy and played great,” said Alba center Ben Lammers at MagentaSport: “It’s hard to play back-to-back games.” The team is just “great”. The previous five playoff duels against Bayern had all lost the Berliners.
Thanks to the success, Alba is now the only second in the list of the most successful clubs, only Bayer Leverkusen (14) has won more championship titles. And Berlin, double winner last year, made clear the triumph in Munich for the second time in a row. Last season, the team of coach Aito Garcia Reneses won the final tournament in the Audi Dome, which was organized by the Bundesliga because of the corona pandemic.
Cup winners Munich missed getting the double again after 2018 and making the most successful season in the club’s history perfect. After the sensational entry into the quarter-finals of the Euro League, Bayern had beaten Alba in their own hall in the cup final in mid-May. This time there was nothing to be gained “at home”.
Bavaria lacks rhythm
For the first time in more than a year there were fans in the hall, but Bayern got off to a poor start in front of 1,300 spectators. After six minutes, coach Andrea Trinchieri took a time-out when the score was 3:13.
Bayern, who again lacked national player Paul Zipser due to neurological problems, found no rhythm at all offensively – Alba around the well-humored Jayson Granger pulled away. The Munich team had often shown comeback qualities this season, and this time the team was able to shorten the gap to eight points by the break.
Munich stayed tuned and came very close again (50: 54/30. Minute), but Alba had an answer to every run and brought the narrow lead to the finish. The guests’ best thrower was Granger with 29 points. At Bayern, Wade Baldwin was the top scorer with 18 points.
Lo collects clubs and titles
After two games in Berlin, the series moved to Munich when the score was 1: 1, Alba won two match points on Saturday (81:69) and used the first one straight away. Maodo Lo won the championship with the third club, something that had previously only been achieved by Holger Geschwindner, Mike Jackel and Stephan Baeck in the Bundesliga. Lo had previously triumphed with Brose Bamberg (2017) and Bayern (2019).
The BBL’s corona season ended as planned and, apart from the top four for the trophy, went relatively smoothly. The tournament was canceled at short notice in April due to corona cases at the BG Göttingen and postponed by four weeks. “We got through the season well in terms of sport, media and economy,” said BBL boss Stefan Holz.
For the German national team from Berlin, it goes straight to the next. Lo, Niels Giffey and Johannes Thiemann are part of the line-up for the Supercup next weekend (June 18 to 20) in Hamburg, which is used to prepare for the Olympic qualification in Split / Croatia (June 29 to July 4). The fourth duel of the final series was the 84th game of the season for Euro League participants Alba.
.