Donar starts the play-offs for the national championship in Martiniplaza on Wednesday evening. Yoast United is the first opponent in this. The Groningen basketball pride seems to be in good shape in time. Willem Brandwijk has been shining at Donar for weeks. ,,I’m having my best period as a professional basketball player.”
On May 4, Willem Brandwijk always watches the national commemoration of the dead on Dam Square in Amsterdam. Also during his years in the United States, Donar’s player always made sure to follow it through a live stream. ,,My father often sent me a message that day: ‘Hey, Wil, remember, it’s May 4’. When it was eight o’clock in the evening in the Netherlands, I always went to my room to reflect on the war victims.”
Coming May 4, that option will not be available for Brandwijk. At eight o’clock he is warming up for the second play-off match against Yoast United in a sports hall in Bemmel. “It feels different. It is important to me to remember the victims of war. Fortunately, things have been arranged in Bemmel. We will interrupt the warm-up. It will be different from all previous years. I’m looking forward to the game all day and I’m full of adrenaline on the basketball court, while I really want to reflect on that moment.”
Lots of criticism
The decision to play on May 4 was met with much criticism. Due to the limited availability of the hall in Bemmel, there was no other option. Donar coach Andrej Stimac indicated that such a decision would not be made in his home country of Croatia. ,,Our national commemoration is a day off there, so there would never be a match anyway.”
A day before the meeting in Bemmel, Donar and Yoast United have already played their first play-off game for the national title in Martiniplaza. For Brandwijk it is the first time that he plays two games in two days. ,,I always recover pretty quickly, but I always sleep badly after a game. Almost every athlete has that. I’m still full of adrenaline and the game is still shooting through my head. One time I don’t sleep until 4 am, the other time at 2 am, but it is always well past midnight. Fortunately I can take a nap in the bus on the way to Bemmel.”
Brandwijk has been one of the stars at Donar in recent weeks, which is no longer a shadow of the unstable team at the start of the season. “There is something to be gained. That feeling was very different in the first months of this season. That creates pressure, but also creates extra fire in the team. I am also very happy with my own development. I’m feeling good. I’m not a player who can pull that out of himself; If the team is running well, I’m running well too.”
Many labor
He owes Brandwijk’s top form to the hard work he does. ,,I knew: the stone is gonna crack ”, he says. “It is like a sculptor who strikes a stone a hundred times, but only on the 101st time does the stone break. That does not mean that that stone was broken by that 100th blow, but also by all the hammer blows before that. I always tell myself that. All the work I put into it is now paying off. I enjoy that. I am now experiencing my best period as a professional basketball player.”
Brandwijk also thanks his coach Stimac for this. ,,I am someone who responds very well to the confidence of a coach. I have never felt so much confidence from a coach in my time at Donar as I do now. Look at the three-pointers: I can throw as many as I want, as long as it’s the right time. I feel comfortable with that.”
If Donar wins the best-of-three series against Yoast United, archrival Heroes Den Bosch awaits in the semifinals. The team from Brabant finished just above Donar in the BNXT League and therefore only enter the semi-finals and also have home advantage. Still, Brandwijk sees opportunities for the Groningen people. “The atmosphere in our dressing room has turned 180 degrees compared to the start of the season. Den Bosch started the season well, but is in a lesser phase. We know how it feels in their dressing room right now. They’re going to have a long, hard, rotten week. That might be harder than playing two or three games.”