Berlin: False start to the new season: Alba loses Bundesliga opener in Hamburg with 80:97

Alba Berlin would certainly have imagined the start of the new season differently. In Hamburg they suffered a deserved defeat. The Berliners were trailing almost the entire time and revealed many problems.

The basketball players of Alba Berlin suffered a defeat at the start of the new season in the Bundesliga. The German runner-up lost away to the Towers Hamburg by a clear 80:97 (44:48). The best Berlin scorer was Jonas Mattiseck with twelve points.

Disastrous Berlin start

The Berliners are starting the season in the Inselpark Arena with two new signings in the starting five. William McDowell-White and Trevion Williams came in the summer to compensate for the most painful departures of Johannes Thiemann and Sterling Brown, among others. Alba coach Israel Gonzalez also had to do without five injured players: Gabriele Procida, Malte Delow, Matt Thomas, Tim Schneider and Ziga Samar.

In the early stages, it was clear that the Berlin team, which had been changed and reduced in size, had not yet played well together. They lacked rhythm and lost the ball more and more in attack: Alba recorded a total of six turnovers in the first quarter. Their defensive play also seemed chaotic, which meant that the hosts were already ten points ahead after just five minutes (14:4).

Little by little, however, the Albatrosses managed to stabilize themselves. In the second period, two successful three-pointers from Elias Rapieque and Louis Olinde started a comeback and the attacking processes got better and better. At one point, Olinde even brought the Berlin team into the lead (31:30). The big problem, however, remained the shaky defense, which allowed Hamburg to stop the run and go into the locker room with a lead.

Close game before the Final section

As was the case at the beginning, the hosts came back much better after the break and earned many free throws. There was hardly any real resistance from Berlin. Every time they caught up a little, they gave Hamburg too much space in defense and so continued to fall behind.

Jonas Mattisseck then brought new energy to the Albatrosses’ game, coming off the bench, defending hard and hitting all his shots. Matteo Spagnolo also slowly warmed up and continued to lead the team after Mattisseck suffered a laceration in a collision and had to leave the field for a short time. Suddenly the Berliners were on equal terms again and made sure that things got exciting again at the start of the last quarter (69:70).

Alba collapses again

But another slump followed. Hamburg started the final period with a 9-0 run, revealing major coordination problems in Berlin’s defense. Alba suddenly stopped shooting up front either. It didn’t help that the 2.21 meter tall Khalifa Koumadje grabbed one offensive rebound after another – the second chances all went wide.

Martin Hermannsson, who is actually one of the team’s leaders, was particularly weak during this phase. And new signing McDowell-White was hardly visible either, taking just one shot in the entire game.

As the turnovers started to pile up again (20 in total at the end), the Hamburg team pulled further and further ahead. Led by their point guard Brae Ivey, who scored 22 points, they kept the party going without a hitch and caused the Berlin team to get off to a bad start.

Broadcast: rbb24, 22.09.2024, 21:45