EWE Baskets Oldenburg secured second place in Group A of the easyCredit BBL Final Tournament 2020 as they knocked off FC Bayern Munich 89-81 for their third straight win.
Nathan Boothe led the way with 17 points for Oldenburg, who finished the group phase with a 3-1 record. Robin Amaize picked up 15 points, Braydon Hobbs and Ian Hummer both chipped in 12 points and Rasid Mahalbasic picked up 11 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists for the winners.
Bayern ended up taking third place in the group with a 2-2 record despite Vladimir Lucic scoring 16 points, Paul Zipser tallying 15 and Danilo Barthel hitting for 10 points.
Lucic and TJ Bray hit from downtown straight away for a 6-2 Bayern lead. Bayern couldn’t handle Mahalbasic, who scored twice inside for Oldenburg’s first lead 9-8. Lucic, Boothe and Bray all followed with long balls as the lead switched hands four times and Oldenburg were ahead 19-16. Bayern’s offense continued to flow and Petteri Koponen drained a triple and Bayern were back up 21-19. There were two more lead changes and Maodo Lo’s free throws gave Bayern the lead 28-26 after 10 minutes.
A Boothe three put Oldenburg back ahead 33-30 but there were four straight lead changes, the last one coming on a trey by Karsten Tadda for a 40-38 lead. Leon Radosevic finished the first half with a dunk and a 44-42 Bayern advantage.
Oldenburg failed to score for the first 3:15 minutes of the second half and Bayern pulled away for the biggest lead of the game at 48-42. Koponen and Zipser went back-to-back from long range and the advantage grew to 56-47. Bayern’s offense stalled though and Boothe and Amaize drained long balls and Hummer tipped in a rebound as Oldenburg led 60-59 after 30 minutes thanks to a 12-2 run.
Danilo Barthel tried to keep Bayern in the game with a three-pointer but Tyler Larson, Mahalbasic and Hobbs all hit from the outside in a 14-0 run for an 80-66 advantage with less than 4 minutes to play. Bayern was able to cut the gap to 79-84 but Hummer drained the dagger three-pointer for an 87-79 lead with 21 seconds left.
QUOTES: Oldenburg’s Robin Amaize: “It was a super performance. We need a lot of energy. Of course we talked after the Crailsheim game. No question, we played like shit and didn’t have any energy. And today it was the opposite. Everybody did their part. The bench created energy. And I think we won deservedly because of the energy we had.”
Oldenburg head coach Mladen Drijencic: “Two days ago we beat Crailsheim and accomplished our goal but we didn’t play how we wanted to play. And of course that hurt all of us. We analyzed a lot, talked a lot that we need to pull together. And we were able to do that on the court today for 40 minutes.”
“Everybody is hungry. Everybody needs victories as motivation. I think this victory will give us confidence, will give us a push.”
Bayern’s Vladimir Lucic: “Not good. I mean we had some good periods of the game but as soon as we went down 5 or 6 it looked like the game was over. And there was still 15 more minutes to play. Not a really good performance, but it is what it is. We’ll try to do our best in the Quarter-Finals.”
Bayern head coach Oliver Kostic: “If we have 16 turnovers and allow the opponents 15 offensive rebounds, then of course it’s difficult to talk about a game that we can win. We had at one moment good control of the game, we had a solid run. And then missing so many free throws and having so many turnovers going into fast break points and other points that came out of that plus box-outs didn’t work today. They missed the shots but we didn’t grab it. And with these numbers it’s very difficult to win a game.”
“We’re alive. This is one day when we didn’t do the things we wanted to do. The team was there, we fought til the end. Of course we didn’t make it, but in general we had our game. We need to work on the numbers and we need to improve for the next games, that’s all.”