The basketball players from FC Bayern Munich have regained the lead in the Bundesliga. The German Cup winner only defeated ninth-placed Hamburg Towers in overtime in front of a record crowd of 12,000 spectators in the Hanseatic city with 81:80 (73:73, 38:34).
The previous leader, Niners Chemnitz, then had to admit defeat to third-place Alba Berlin with 79:84 (35:39) in the evening and was therefore unable to overtake Bayern again.
In the top game of the weekend, in front of 5,000 spectators in the Chemnitz exhibition hall, Sterling Brown proved to be Berlin’s best scorer with 18 points, Jeff Garrett (15) and Kevin Yebo (14) were the hosts’ most accurate shooters. Alba, who had narrowly lost the Euroleague duels against Real Madrid and in Istanbul during the week, needed until the second quarter to find their way into the game and take the upper hand. The Saxons kept up in the exciting game, but were no longer able to take the lead, although they equalized in the meantime and Aher Uguak brought his team back to within one point 20 seconds before the end.
Munich offensive with problems
In Hamburg, Brae Ivey forced overtime with a three-pointer 33 seconds before the end of regular time. Nick Weiler-Babb missed the following long-distance throw for the favorite. Aljami Durham had another overtime in his hands in the dramatic encounter, but his attempt at a layup was blocked shortly before the end. Munich’s top scorers were Isaac Bonga and Elias Harris with 14 points each, while William Christmas (18) and Vincent King (17) scored best for the North Germans.
After the two defeats in the Euroleague in Valencia on Wednesday and at home against Maccabi Tel Aviv on Friday, Munich coach Pablo Laso’s offense had difficulty finding its way into the game against the opponents’ compact defense. In the last quarter, the favorites fought for a double-digit lead for the first time, but Hamburg was able to reduce it again. Devin Booker, Danko Brankovic and Andreas Obst were missing due to injury; The other Bayern players were clearly tired.
On the occasion of their tenth anniversary, the Hamburg team moved to the large arena at the Volksparkstadion and attracted a larger audience there than the national team around Dirk Nowitzki, which achieved the previous Hamburg record of 10,925 spectators in a test match against Canada in 2006.
