FC Bayern basketball players: Clear victory at the start of the playoff – Sport

The fact that there was a bright red T-shirt on every spectator seat in the Bayern basketball hall on Tuesday evening had two advantages for the Munich team. First, the club concealed the fact that the Audi Dome was not sold out in the first quarter-final game against BG Göttingen – 6,059 spectators came to the playoff start. Secondly, it also made it clear to the most clueless fan what crucial weeks are now ahead in this Bundesliga season: “Krunchtime” was the slogan on the shirts, misspelled in the sense of the sponsor, underneath it was written that Bayern are on the “Road of Redemption ” are inflected.

At the end of this path there should simply be the championship title after a grueling season marked by injuries, which was disappointing in the Euroleague, but in which the Munich team at least secured the national cup title. Andrea Trichieri’s team, for whom it would be their first championship title as Bayern coach, has now successfully completed the first stage of this road trip. She won against Göttingen with 87:67 (44:36).

The game didn’t even start that well for Bayern, who had to do without captain Vladimir Lucic in the playoffs due to injury, who, according to the club, will soon have to undergo an operation on his hand, Othello Hunter and Augustine Rubit: The first two points of the Game Göttingen’s Harper Kamp scored with a free throw, Nick Weiler-Babb immediately countered with a three-pointer.

The Bavarians then pulled away to 11:3, but the guests from Lower Saxony came back and soon it was only 11:9 for the Munich team. The game was repeated shortly before the end of the first quarter, and when Bayern guard Ognjen Jaramaz was disqualified at the beginning of the second quarter for tripping and had to leave the interior, things got hectic. FCB sports director Marko Pesic jumped up from his seat and yelled on the sidelines, the 46-year-old no longer understood the world.

“The hall will be branded with BMW, but there will definitely not be a Hoeneß Hall,” says Honorary President Uli Hoeneß

It was 21:21 shortly thereafter, but Göttingen kept up well thanks to the many points scored by his convincing point guard Mark Smith. But then came the time when the Bayern basketball players ignited their e-turbo to stay in the street scene, which also fitted quite well that day: the morning before the game, the club finally announced its new mobility partner, BMW solves Audi and will equip the players and the coaching staff with fully electric vehicles from July. Bayern Honorary President Uli Hoeneß told SZ on the sidelines of the basketball game: “It turned out that way, the deal was only possible because Audi wanted to orient itself differently, towards Formula 1.”

And the Bavarian carmaker gratefully took the opportunity, there will be no distortions of any kind between the sponsors: “Audi supports the footballers and the AG, BMW is the basketball player in the GmbH.” At the same time, Hoeneß emphasized that Audi’s commitment to the footballers would not be affected, which is contractually secured until 2029 anyway. But Hoeneß also explained that the Audi Dome will have a different name in the future: “The hall will be branded with BMW, but there will definitely not be a Hoeneß Hall.”

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Thanks to Nick Weiler-Babb and Niels Giffey, to whom Trinchieri gave a lot of playing time, the Munich team pulled away more and more – first to 44:36 at the break, then even to 59:40. They went into the last quarter with a 16-point lead. They had long since had a better grip on Göttingen’s lively offensive under their own basket. Giffey, who ended up with ten points (Bayern’s top scorer Weiler-Babb scored 15, Cassius Winston 13, Isaac Bonga 10), had already warned his colleagues before the game: “We have to prepare for their style of play, a free system , quite offensive and aggressive.”

The Munich team succeeded, but in the end they still had to cope with a small dent. Dreier specialist Andreas Obst was four minutes before the end after a collision on the floor and a few moments later hobbled off the field injured. Later he gave the all-clear, “not so bad”, on Thursday it would be fine. But Jaramaz’s participation in the second game of the best-of-five series on Thursday (6 p.m., Audi Dome) is in jeopardy – he could be suspended for a game after his 2-minute suspension. “He didn’t want to commit a bad foul,” tried to reconcile coach Trinchieri. He knows that he will still need each of his players.