Spain is European champion, Germany wins its first European Championship medal in 17 years, the big NBA stars are eliminated surprisingly early, several referees are causing a stir – a look back at the European Basketball Championship in 2022.
The preliminary round of the European Basketball Championship was shared by the Czech Republic, Georgia, Italy and Germany as host countries. The focus of most German basketball fans was on Cologne, where the German team won four out of five preliminary round games and one of the best players in the NBA, Luka Doncic, dominated for Slovenia.
The preliminary round in Cologne, with three games each day, was particularly euphoric. Even during the games without German participation, there were many fans in the arena, which made for a loud and electrifying atmosphere.
Especially the supporters of the Lithuanian team were sometimes so loud that you couldn’t hear your own words. According to the German Basketball Association, more than 236,000 spectators in the preliminary round in Cologne were a European Championship record.
Referee performances cause discussions
In the preliminary round, the referees also drew attention to themselves. In the match between Germany and Lithuania, Lithuania missed a free throw without anyone noticing.
In the game between Turkey and Georgia, the game continued 22 seconds when it should have been stopped.
Schroeder praises Wagner
Although the German team had to do without NBA professional Maxi Kleber and EuroLeague center Tibor Pleiss, they played themselves into a frenzy in the preliminary round. Above all, build-up Dennis Schröder improved from game to game and led the team as captain and top scorer.
21-year-old Franz Wagner, Orlando Magic, was also reliable in his first tournament for Germany. “He’s great, he has to keep going like this and then he’ll be one of the best, he has the potential,” Schröder said about him in an interview with NBA Overtime.
Appeal to basketball fans
After a particularly good preliminary round in terms of play and atmosphere, the German national team went up against outsiders Montenegro in the round of 16 – in Berlin, where all the players in the knockout round played. Germany dominated, it looked like a clear win, until the German team slowed down and ended up winning just by a hair’s breadth.
Aside from the poor performance in the second half, point guard Madodo Lo (Alba Berlin) criticized the atmosphere in the arena, which was not comparable to the games in Cologne. “I appeal to all Berliners to show what we’re made of.”
NBA superstars are out early
Right from the start, the three NBA stars Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic attracted the most attention at this basketball championship. No exaggeration: These three players are among the ten best players in the world at the moment.
But for the Serbian Nikola Jokic, after a convincing preliminary round, it was already over in the round of 16 against Italy. A round later, Doncic, who had been playing very well up to that point, had to say goodbye to outsiders Poland.
That left Giannis Antetokounmpo. Antetokounmpo appeared as if he was trying to slow down the tournament, only stepping up when Greece needed him – such as 41 points against Ukraine and 27 points against the Czech Republic.
But against Germany in the quarterfinals, even a very strong Antetokounmpo wasn’t enough. Germany defended well collectively, mostly closed the zone and quickly rotated to the three-man shooters of the Greeks.
Fans had tickets to the wrong game
This quarter-finals of the Germans brought the arena to a boil, which – at least in Germany games – went through like that. However, short-term changes in the start times of the games were annoying for many fans.
For example, fans had bought tickets for the German quarter-finals in advance, but then watched Spain versus Finland. The world association FIBA and the DBB held each other responsible for this.
German team triggers euphoria
Germany narrowly lost the semi-final against very strong team basketball from Spain. But the frustration lasted just under two days before the German team secured the bronze medal in the match for third place against Poland – the first European Championship medal in 17 years.
With seven wins from nine games, the German team also triggered at least a small amount of basketball euphoria outside of the arenas. Funk and Sportschau’s basketball channel on Instagram, NBA Overtimereached 1.1 million users on the day of the semifinals.
The Spanish national team has been one of the best teams in the world for 20 years without long breaks. And at this European Championship, too, they impressed with their fast team basketball and strong defense. France struggled a lot during the tournament but always fought back. But in the end it wasn’t enough for the really big race to catch up against Spain.