And One!

Weekly round-up for our English-speaking fans by David Hein.

Week 11 - March 11th 2014

Bamberg slay hot dragons for 10th straight win

Brose Baskets Bamberg slowed one of the most-feared teams in the Beko BBL by slaying the Artland Dragons 78-72 to extend their winning streak to 10 games and now look forward to another test this weekend at Alba Berlin.

Berlin picked up a big road victory at Bamberg’s past Eurocup opponent Banco di Sardenga Sassari and have good chances of advancing into the quarter-finals. But in the Beko BBL, Berlin have dropped their last two games and three of the last four – all of those contests however coming on the road. The game Saturday in the German capital will be a tough one.

Bamberg notched league win number 20 on the season to improve to 20-3 behind only 22-3 Bayern Munich. Artland however came into the game on Sunday March 9 having won their last three games including handing Bayern Munich their first home defeat of the season 91-86 and then whipping EWE Baskets Oldenburg 95-69 in the span of six days.

Bamberg shooters hot from start

Artland took their first – and as it would turn out only – lead of the game with the first two points. Elias Harris knocked down two three-pointers as Brose opened a 10-6 lead. The Dragons would hit a triple and make it 10-9 before Casey Jacobsen and Jared Jordan both hit from long range as the lead swelled to 18-9. After one quarter it was 20-11.

Anton Gavel’s trey to start the second quarter made it a 12-point lead. But Bamberg failed to cover the Artland outside shooters and Bastian Doreth, David Holston and Chad Topper all connected in a 9-0 run to pull within 23-20. The margin was down to 25-24 before Brose were able to create a bit of a cushion again with Harris’s triple making it 34-27. The advantage was 36-32 at the break.

Harris and Rakim Sanders both nailed early three-balls in the second half and another three from Sanders increased the margin to 47-32. Artland fought to get the deficit back to five points (50-45) but Sanders hit another long ball and scored another basket to get the lead back to double digits at 55-45. It was 55-47 after three quarters.

Doreth nailed two long balls and Topper nailed one of his own to bring the Dragons to within 57-56, resulting in a Bamberg timeout. Artland’s Christian Hoffmann was hit with an unsportsmanlike foul with Gavel making both free throws and Maik Zirbes hitting a layup on the ensuing possession to push the lead back to five points and two Zirbes foul shots extended it to 63-56. But the Dragons wouldn’t go away.

With Bamberg up 72-69, Sanders’ layup attempt was blocked by Lawrence Hill with 35 seconds left. Brose stopped Artland on the next possession with D’Or Fischer stealing Doreth’s pass into the post. After Jordan’s two free throws, Hill nailed a three-pointer to trim it to 74-72 with 6.7 seconds left. But Gavel knocked down his two foul shots with 5.9 seconds remaining to make it a four-point game. Gavel then stole the ball from Holston and made two more from the line for the winning margin.

Sanders once again had a strong game with 18 points with four three-pointers, eight rebounds, one assist and three steals. Gavel scored 15 points while Zirbes had 12 and Harris picked up 14 points and eight rebounds. Jordan collected 13 assists to go with his eight points, five rebounds and four steals. As a team, Bamberg made 11-of-27 three-pointers (41 percent) with 22 assists while holding Holston to six points on just five shots and Anthony King to 10 points.

“Things are pointing in the right direction.”

“We were able to accomplish a lot of the things we wanted to do. I think we defended King and Holston quite well. We know we didn’t stop (Kenneth) Frease from rebounding (eight offensive rebounds) and that hurt us a bit. But there were positives there as well,” said Bamberg head coach Chris Fleming.

“Sanders rebounded well for the second straight game. Harris grabbed some big tough rebounds late. In the end, we made the free throws and got the win. I think Jared had the game well under control. There were a lot of positives in the game and things are pointing in the right direction.”

Brose general manager Wolfgang Heyder was pleased with the team’s overall performance against the Dragons.

“This game shows that we have taken another step forward as a team, especially defensively. We used that to take control of the game. If we had made a couple of the open shots that we had it would have been a very, very good game,” said Heyder.

“There’s good reason that Artland made headlines twice in the last week, winning in Munich and blowing out Oldenburg. That shows they are a good team. In the second half they took advantage of our weakness and we couldn’t take their shooters out of the game. On offense we were a bit too hurried and never were able to finish off the game.”

Harris added that the key was sticking together as a unit.

“It was a hard-fought game. It was tight until the end but we stayed together as a team and kept calm and got the win. The team is getting better and better each game and more consistent.”

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