National player Johannes Thiemann was one of the best throwers Photo: picture alliance / ZUMAPRESS.com
From BZ/dpa
Alba Berlin remains the leader in the basketball Bundesliga. The defending champion won his away game at the Veolia Towers Hamburg comfortably with 83:63 (40:32).
It was the ninth league win in a row for coach Israel Gonzalez’s team. The best Berlin throwers were national player Johannes Thiemann with 16 points and Ben Lammers with twelve points.
Alba found it difficult to find his rhythm in the first few minutes and so it was Hamburg who scored the first two points in this game. However, the guests reacted quickly and took the lead for the first time at 4:2. And from then on they shouldn’t give them up in this game anymore.
The Berliners defended well and scored well on offense. Up to 28:16 they pulled away at the beginning of the second quarter. But then the hosts got into the game better, got a few important offensive rebounds and now increasingly hit their distance shots. So Hamburg came back to six points (36:30), but Alba remained unimpressed.
After the change of sides, the Berliners increased the intensity again and hardly allowed Hamburg to score easily in the third quarter. The front runner pulled away to 26 points (68:42). Uncertainty was noticeable among the weakened hosts, while the extremely high strain of the last few weeks became noticeable for Alba in the last section.
Gonzalez spared some regulars in the last few minutes. Nevertheless, the Berliners brought victory to the finish without any problems.