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Maodo Lo from Alba Berlin (l)
Photo:
Sebastian Räppold/Matthias Koch / imago images/Matthias Koch
The German champions Alba Berlin have won the Basketball Bundesliga Cup for the eleventh time.
The capital city prevailed in a long-fought final in their own hall against the Merlins Crailsheim 86:76 (39:43) and thus crowned themselves the record cup winners.
With their eleventh success, Berlin overtook Bayer Leverkusen (ten titles) in the all-time rankings.
»There is of course unbelievable euphoria, it was so tough.
You thought for a moment whether it would be something today," said Alba's Johannes Thiemann at MagentaSport: "But we did an incredible job." Maodo Lo scored 20 points for Alba, while Crailsheim's TJ Shorts was the most successful shooter with 30 points the court. "It hurts, we wanted to win here," said Shorts. "But we're keeping our heads up.
Nobody believed that we could get this far.«
It was not until late Saturday evening that Alba prevailed in the semi-finals against the cup spook Niners Chemnitz, who had previously thrown out Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals.
Crailsheim, represented in a cup final for the first time ever, had previously defeated Löwen Braunschweig, supported by NBA star and shareholder Dennis Schröder.
Before the final, Merlins managing director Martin Romig reminisced, on January 31, 1986 his club had been founded from a student group.
In the meantime, however, Crailsheim has established itself in the upper half of the Bundesliga after promotions and relegations in recent years - and now there was not much missing from the cup success.
The final was already a sensation for Crailsheim
"We slept through the beginning a bit on defense," said Berlin's Oscar da Silva at the break.
There was no more talk of that in the third quarter.
Alba turned up the heat, scored well from outside, especially through Jonas Mattisseck and Jaleen Smith, and pulled away to 61:56.
So the favorite broke the offensive rhythm of the hitherto strong Crailsheimers, who in the meantime fell behind with 14 points.
In the final section, Crailsheim never gave up despite the double-digit deficit.
Shorts fought back with some crazy hits.
The American restored the three-point gap with an And One, before Lo immediately hit the three-pointer to make it 82:76 – and sealed the historic triumph.
ara/dpa