By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Bayern Munich beat Baskonia 84 – 77 on the road and won in Vitoria for the first time in the history of the club. It was the second straight EuroLeague victory for Bayern that climbed at 9 – 11 and closer to the playoff zone.
The trio of Othello Hunter (17 points, eight rebounds), Corey Walden (17 points, six assists) and Augustine Rubit (17 points) led Bayern in scoring. Nick Weiler-Babb contributed seven points, eight assists and five rebounds.
“I feel good. We played a great game tonight,” Hunter said. “We executed and did what we needed to do to get the win. It is the second half of the season. We have to get wins, every game counts. We showed tonight that we have heart. We will keep pushing, executing plays and getting stops to win. I was trying to play as hard as I could – anything for the team to win.”
Hunter also dropped four points in a row with a pair of spectacular baskets to put Bayern up 71 – 77 with 2:24 to play, in a moment when Baskonia had a 9-0 run and was pushing to fully complete a comeback from down 13.
Baskonia never approached Bayern by a shooting distance in the rest of the match and suffered a loss that dropped them to 7 – 13 and three wins away from the postseason spots. Wade Baldwin had 23 points against his former team, Simone Fontecchio posted 12 points plus five rebounds, Matt Costello scored 12 and Tadas Sedekerskis finished with 11 points and eight boards.
Bayern had taken a 26 – 39 lead in the second period after a 17-0 run in just four minutes. The visiting side never trailed afterward with Baskonia erasing multiple double-digit margins but failing to even tie the game.
“I think that if we played the first half like we played the second half, we had more chances to win the game,” Baskonia coach Neven Spahija said. “I have to give credit to Bayern, they played an excellent game. I like how our players fought in the second half. I think that, right now, we don’t play our best basketball, but we are going to come back.”
“The toughest court in EuroLeague”
Bayern had lost to Baskonia in the first-leg of the regular season but got the payback in an arena where, as Munich coach Andrea Trinchieri admitted, always provides a challenge.
“I believe that we wanted this game bad,” Trinchieri said. “We had ups and downs but at the end, we put together a team effort and did it for our physio and our team manager, who are at home with COVID. Sometimes it is like a family. We are always on the road, always together, and when somebody is sick, you have extra motivations. It is very difficult to play here. I lost so many games here. To me, the most important is that we bounced back, played a team game and won. We got the tie-breaker, which is also very important.”
“This is, for me, the toughest court in the entire EuroLeague,” Trinchieri also mentioned. “I played many games here and did not get many wins, so this was a very important game for us. I believe the whole team performed. We played solid defense but were very, very good on offense, I believe that. We didn’t make a lot of shots in the paint but I believe we delivered the ball there very well and in the last stand of the game, we were able to find Hunter on pick-and-roll very well. We are very, very happy.”