Hard blow for bloody nervous and shockingly weak Donar. Title battle will be decided in Leiden on Monday

After two victories in Leiden and a defeat in Martiniplaza, Donar needed one more victory to crown himself national champion for the eighth time in history. Another home defeat, as happened on Tuesday, would not happen again, the players had promised.

The players of ZZ Leiden entered the basketball hall in Martiniplaza on Saturday evening, with their heads bowed and their heads bowed, under a cautious, but growing booing. Shortly afterwards, the players, led by Leon Williams, sprinted onto the parquet with a loud battle cry. The turnout showed that Donar had much more confidence in a good outcome of the fourth final match for the national title.

Dramatic start

But appearances can be deceiving, as it turned out immediately after the tip-off. Donar started shivering in the Martiniplaza filled to the brim, where soon the ooohhs and aaahhs rolled across the stands. Not from surprise at beautiful scores, but from disbelief about the lousy game of the Groningers. Clay Mounce fell awkwardly on his hole and Vernon Taylor, Andrej Magdevski and Viktor Gaddefors let the ball slip out of their hands for inexplicable reasons. Leiden was not put in the way and ran smoothly to 1-16. In the blink of an eye, Donar was back to the unstable team of the beginning of this season.

Only Peter Olisemeka scored a field score in the first quarter. Donar’s other six runs all came from the free throw line. And there, too, Donar had the greatest difficulty in scoring. Of the eleven free throws, only six fell through the net. Donar faced an 8-23 deficit after the first quarter.

Serious injury Taylor

In the second quarter, Donar had things better in order defensively, but offensively it remained very poor. Coach Andrej Stimac got very excited, stamping his feet he watched Donar carelessly lose the ball and to spare the players on the parquet, he scolded the bench seats.

The nervousness had not yet disappeared in the second act. Gaddefors missed two free throws, with his second attempt not even reaching the ring. Meanwhile, Donar was dealt another big blow, when Taylor lay moaning on the parquet with a rib injury and had to leave the room with a pained face for a ride to the hospital.

Under the loud encouragement of the crowd, Donar crept closer and shortly before the end of the second quarter the gap had shrunk to seven points, but the hope of a bearable halftime score disappeared like snow in the sun when Leiden scored 22 in a row with two scores. -34 made of it.

Gone hope

The hope that another Donar would come out of the dressing rooms was quickly dashed. The first three scores were for Leiden and the Groningen team only threw their first score through the net after almost four minutes of play. The Leiden crowd more and more drowned out the home fans and the guests had a comfortable lead of sixteen points at the start of the last quarter: 35-51.

The most embarrassing phase of the match was not yet over. The Donar players saved that for the fourth quarter. Only after seven and a half minutes of play did Donar score for the first time. A dunk from Mounce made it 37-66. At that time, part of the public had already left Martiniplaza. The other part treated the Donar players to a flute concert or reacted with cynical laughs to another big miss. In the last two minutes, Leiden was gracious to the Groningen team and Donar was allowed to add some points.

Decision in Leiden

What should have been the championship game turned into a big sof. The decision will follow in Leiden on Monday. A small consolation for Donar is that the Leideners in this series have not yet managed to win at home. Whether Donar can recover from this brutal blow seems unlikely, but if there’s one thing that can’t be predicted, it’s Donar’s season.