By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
The Euroleague is at its finest this season. Cazoo Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz (11-7) was the hottest team in the league, but totally unexpectedly they lost against Alba last week, and now Bayern (7-11) shocked them as well in Round 18 after their best performance this season
The final score was 92-79 with Bayern having six players in double digits despite the absences of Andrea Obst and Vladimir Lucic.
As coach Andrea Trinkieri said about the key to his team’s win: “Six players in double digits and we found a way to replace what Andi [Obst] and Lucic give us in terms of offense. We found it as a team; everyone did a piece of their job. We played a great game, we deserved to win and I’m very happy.”
Cassius Winston led the way with 16 points, Augustine Rubit followed with 13, while Nick Weiler-Babb had 12.
Markus Howard on the other side “stopped” at 21 points which was far from enough. However, with Bayern having a 7-11 record coach Trinkieri is not eager to celebrate yet.
As he said: “We don’t look at the standings. We are a submarine, probably 215 meters under the water. We keep working, improving, and not looking at anybody else. In March we come to the surface and see how many boats are in front or behind us.”
Bayern had by far their best quarter of the season against Baskonia. In the first 10 minutes, the German team was firing on all cylinders getting a 10-point advantage (34-24).
It seemed that Baskonia found a rhythm in the second quarter but Howard did now have enough help from his teammates as Baskonia trailed by eight (52-44). That was most evident in the third quarter when Bayern made another push to seal the deal, entering the last quarter leading by 15 (75-60).
As Vaskonia coach Joan Penarroya admitted without any real hesitation: “Congratulations to Bayern, they played better. I think we had a lot of problems with our defense, we didn’t control our rhythm. Bayern played easily on offense and, in a way, it’s difficult to win if you play soft defense.”