Donar on match point after second victory in Leiden

With the home advantage for Leiden in the basketball final for the national title, the assignment for Donar was clear: there had to be a win in the Five May Hall. According to the basketball scholars, the chance of a victory in the lion’s den was greatest with the first game. After all, at that time Leiden would still have to get used to the physical game of the Groningen people.

Donar managed to win the first duel in the Key City. After a blood-curdling double extension, the guests were too strong for Leiden on Sunday afternoon and the advantage fell to the Groningen team in one fell swoop. The jubilation disappeared two days later when Leiden leveled the score again in Martiniplaza. During that game, the two basketball superpowers did not differ much from each other.

Sold out Martiniplaza

Due to the defeat at home, Donar suddenly came under a lot of pressure again in the third game, which was again played in Leiden. The winner of the game would be on match point and can do the job on Saturday evening in a sold-out house – for the first time since June 1, 2019, all seats in Martiniplaza are occupied again.

In the first quarter, the two teams differed little. Leiden had a good grip on Clay Mounce, who shot out of the starting blocks in the previous two games, but could not prevent the American from giving Donar an 18-16 lead in the closing seconds of the first company with his first score of the evening.

In the second quarter, Donar slowly walked away from Leiden. In the zeal to stop the home team, the error burden at Donar increased considerably. After the Groningen team had to digest some dubious decisions from the arbitrators, coach Andrej Stimac called his pupils to the side. It had the desired effect; Donar still didn’t give the people of Leiden an inch, but moreover did so without stopping them illegally. Donar seemed to go to rest with a lead of thirteen points, but Roeland Schaftenaar threw a nice three-pointer through the ring in the buzzer.

Defensive like a house

Defensively, Donar was solid again. It is the strength of the Stimac team. Offensively it is anything but a well-oiled machine, as witnessed by the ten points Donar scored in the third quarter (fifteen for Leiden). Andrej Magdevski sometimes throws nice passes, but against Leiden he suffered frequent loss of possession due to his risky game. With the energetic Swede Viktor Gaddefors the pipe seemed to be a bit empty and the sloppiness in the third quarter also increased for him.

Fortunately, Donar can always rely on two strong players: Clay Mounce, a stable factor in the Stimac team throughout the season, and Steph Branch, the late addition, who showed his class several times on Thursday evening.

In the fourth quarter, Donar expanded the lead to ten points. Gaddefors found some leftover energy and bulldozed his way through the Leiden defense a few times. Leiden also seemed exhausted, but fought its way closer point by point. With one and a half minutes left on the clock, the gap had shrunk to two points. From that moment on, the Groningen team also had to do without Mounce, who took a seat behind the boarding with his fifth error.

With just over a minute on the clock, Brandwijk squandered a good opportunity to bring Donar’s lead back to four points. Brandwijk, in great shape during the crossboarder phase of the BNXT League, is no longer a shadow of the player he was a few weeks ago. During this play-off series, he regularly chokes on his own good intentions.

Fortunately, there is still Branch, who coolly threw a ‘three’ through the ring shortly after Brandwijk’s misses. A few seconds later, Gaddefors decided the game with an outbreak and Brandwijk was allowed to end the game with a smile by putting the final score of 55-64 on the boards with a dunk.

With that, Donar again did what it had to do in the Five May Hall: win. The people of Groningen are on match point and can finish it on Saturday evening in a packed Martiniplaza. That’s not a cut cake yet; the strangest things happen in this series.