Essen/Berlin. The Hot Rolling Bears win 55:49 (16:12 | 13:12 | 10:14 | 16:11) against ALBA Berlin. In the second home game of the season, the bears make it unnecessarily difficult against the capital city and give the fans an absolute nerve thriller.
Even the first few minutes of the game with two misplaced shots by Hannfrieder Briel and Bo Kramer foreshadow bad things. The bears start nervously into the second half of the game against ALBA Berlin, third in the table. The guests take advantage of this and pull away to 2: 6 in the first four minutes before the bears find a more than stuttering answer. It remains a tight quarter, which – just like the entire game – is riddled with misses.
The second quarter just won’t and won’t get any better. Essen keeps the minimal lead from the first ten minutes, but just doesn’t manage to find the familiar security. So the game will continue to be decided by the defense, because it works. In this way, the Bears can prevent simple points from the guests, which keeps the general points account low. Halftime is 29:24.
Tempers heat up in the third quarter. ALBA Berlin turned up the heat, fighting to equalize several times, while the bears continued to pursue their form and had the proverbial bad luck sticking to their fingers. Coach Markus Pungercar rotates a lot, but no formation finds the right answer to the most obvious problem: the ball has to go in the basket. 39:38 after thirty minutes played is clearly not enough, especially on the Bears side.
So it’s time to give everything again in the last ten minutes. The Bears show claws and teeth and fight. The quarter is a wild exchange of blows at eye level for nine minutes. ALBA doesn’t give up, but the Bears finally manage to pull away in the last minute. This is not least due to the stop-the-clock game played by the guests, which gives the hosts the chance to score quiet points. In the end there is a 55:49 victory, which is not nice, but important.
The game proves once again that games are won on defense. Nevertheless, it will be essential to shake off the bad luck very quickly. 21 out of 73 field hits is clearly not enough to play at the level that the Hot Rolling Bears have declared their own goal. Nevertheless, the win against Berlin is an important step into the playoffs. So it is now a matter of finding the balance again and attacking Paderborn with familiar strength.
Ilse Arts: “The first quarter was a bit hectic. We had to look for good shots and they just didn’t go in. The defense was consistently good, which was very important. Your Center Jan-Bruno Loderstädt really didn’t make it easy for us. I think the last quarter was our best performance of the day. The defense was good, our shots fell and we approached the game more tactically. Now it’s time to look ahead and continue to work on our strengths against Paderborn.”
Markus Pungercar: “It was clear to us from the start that Berlin would not be easy opponents, but when I look back at the game, we have to admit that we made life far too difficult for ourselves. We had a hit rate of 28%, that’s not ready for the second division. We didn’t make that many open throws and that continued from the first to the 39th minute. We rotated a lot, tried different line ups and it was always the same. In the end, we won the game on defense, which was solid. Ilse Arts scored a decisive goal one minute before the end, Joel Schaake’s nerve-racking free throws were extremely important. Overall, I’m proud of my team for fighting as a team to the end. You can just see that they grew together as a team and that’s exactly why we won the game. Everyone trusted the other and was not angry with the other when misses happened. Now I’m looking forward to Paderborn and to showing what we’re actually capable of again.”
Next Saturday, February 20th, 2022, the Hot Rolling Bears are expecting the Paderborn Ahorn Panthers. Hochball in Essen is usual at 3 p.m.
Played and scored for the Hot Rolling Bears: Bo Kramer (32 points), Walter Vlaanderen (12), Joel Schaake, Romario Biswane (3 each), Ilse Arts, Tim van Raamsdonk (2 each), Hannfrieder Briel (1), Steffen Rundholz, Amy Kaijen, Jens Hillman (ne) and Tobias Mitschke (ne)
2. Wheelchair Basketball Bundesliga North – The match day at a glance:
13.02.2022 Hot Rolling Bears – ALBA Berlin 55:49
02/12/2022 Paderborn maple panther – RB Zwickau eV (cancelled)
2. Wheelchair Basketball Bundesliga North – Outlook:
19.02.2022 17:00 RBC Köln 99ers 2 – RB Zwickau eV
02/20/2022 3:00 p.m. Hot Rolling Bears – Paderborn Ahorn Panther
