General rehearsal, the European Championship can come: The German basketball world champions presented themselves in a strong form at the end of the European Championship preparation.
In the atmospheric Cologne Lanxess Arena, the team of national coach Álex Mumbrú won 95:78 (49:39) against European champion Spain. Even without world champion David Krämer, who fails for the tournament, the DBB team inspired its fans before the first group game against Montenegro on Wednesday (3:30 p.m./RTL and Magenta Sport).
Franz Wagner towered over in front of Dirk Nowitzki with 29 points as the best thrower of the selection of the German Basketball Federation (DBB) in the second success within two days of the European Championship champion. As with the victory in Madrid (106: 105 NV), the team around captain Dennis Schröder (22 points) showed a concentrated performance and completed the preparation with the fifth victory in the sixth test.
On Monday, the team will travel to the Finnish Tampere for the group phase. The Ko round takes place in the Latvian capital Riga. Until then, the national coach only has to delete one player from the extended 13-man squad, because before the game the DBB had announced the European Championship out of Krämer. The 28-year-old laboratories on a muscle injury and received no release from his new Real Madrid association. It was agreed that it was the right decision, “you have to live with that,” said Krämer in magenta.
But the German team was not impressed by this news: leaders Schröder, Wagner, Andreas Obst, Daniel Theis and Johannes Voigtmann pressed the pace right from the start and recommended 15 points in the first three and a half minutes as a starting five for the tournament start. Even after that, Mumbrú’s fast game system was recognizable: in the first quarter, his team came out in front of 18,517 spectators in the sold -out arena despite risky passports without loss of ball.
Spain and coach Sergio Scariolo found hardly any answers to the aggressive German defensive-and on NBA-Star Wagner: The 23-year-old consistently searched the way to the basket and concluded. However, towards the end of the first half, the German team, which continued to be offensive, made a defensive lack of concentration. Thanks to Santi Aldama, who is active in the NBA at the Memphis Grizzlies, the Spaniards were still in striking distance at the break.
After that, the teams were at eye level. With a 65: 54 lead, Germany went into the final quarter – and maintained the concentration until the end. Schröder’s threesome for 88:71 at 2:40 minutes meant the preliminary decision that the leader, like Wagner, ran too much shortly before the end.