BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

From the land of Dirk – Nowitzki and Bauermann, that is – David Hein reports on a few happenings in Germany’s top division of basketball. Read on to find out all about Alba Berlin and Yassin Idbihi pick-and-rolling Bayern Munich to death and overtaking ratiopharm Ulm for second place; s.Oliver Baskets Würzburg moving past Bayern Munich – for now; and LTi Giessen 46ers extending their deal with head coach Björn Harmsen.

Berlin basketball fans came out en masse over the weekend to see if their red-hot Alba Berlin could sweep the season series against the publicity magnate from the deep south Bayern Munich. And Alba did not disappoint a sold-out crowd of 14,500 at the O2 World Arena as Berlin’s bench outscored Bayern’s reserves 46-13 in a 73-52 victory. Munich had absolutely no clue how to defend the Berlin pick-and-roll as Alba back-up center Yassin Idbihi scored 15 of his team-high 17 points in the fourth quarter and Berlin won the final period 73-52.

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While Alba Berlin (22-6) continues to try and claw its way up Germany’s Bundesliga standings at three games behind current top-seed Brose Baskets Bamberg, the team last night got a little relief in the form of a game against relegation-zoners Phoenix Hagen (8-20 and in a three-way tie for 15th place) to put up some gaudy numbers in a 114-86 rout.

Berlin put up a crazy 69 points in the first half of the match and set the Bundesliga record for assists in a game with 32 – many on dishes designed for YouTube highlight clips (as seen below, in fact). The Eurocup side ultimately had five players scoring in double figures, with the pace set by former Benetton Treviso/Bennet Cantù/Wright State University Raiders guard DaShaun Wood’s big 27 points in just 22 minutes played.

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This one goes out to the German-speakers and cheerleader fans among the BallinEurope audience – BiE suspects no shortage in either category – to perk up Monday morning here on the Continent. Check out the preparations undergone by the Alba Berlin dance team before a recent match at O2 World arena as well as some in-game performance. (Hey, at under five minutes, would you rather scope this or “Kobe Doin’ Work”? BiE thought so…

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From the land of Dirk – Nowitzki and Bauermann, that is – David Hein reports on a few happenings in Germany’s top division of basketball. Read on to find out all about Fraport Skyliners reminding Brose Baskets of that losing feeling; EWE Baskets Oldenburg’s dismissal of former championship-winning coach Predrag Krunic; and Bayern Munich blasting past road-weary Artland Dragons, who cling to the no. 4 spot in the standings.

Mark it up as the proverbial good loss later in the season, but two-time reigning German Beko BBL champions Brose Baskets Bamberg were handed their third L of the season with Fraport Skyliners winning 76-68 at home to snap the league leaders’ 15-game winning streak.

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Former Real Madrid/current Los Angeles Lakers scout Antonio Maceiras visited Germany last week, including a stop in Bamberg to watch Brose Baskets destroy TBB Trier (no, seriously: Just look at this box score). Naturally, this gave BallinEurope contributor David Hein the opportunity to chat with the man about working for the Los Angeles Lakers and with his old compadre Ettore Messina; the state of European basketball; and what the Lake Show might do about that bugaboo of a no. 3 spot, among other topics.

Most significantly from BiE’s perspective, however, was Maceiras’ take on Germany’s ambitious Bundesliga. From a European hoops expert’s standpoint, his quote was intriguing indeed.

Said Maceiras: “When I was coming to the gym [tonight], I was thinking Germany is really the biggest hope for European basketball, if not the latest hope. I think the organization here is great. The teams are real professional organizations and very consistent. And this is the biggest market in Europe. And also the ethics of the German people is great for basketball. The combination is excellent. It’s just a matter of keeping the development that German basketball started some years ago. I think the league is getting better all the time. The teams are good and the organization of the games is good. The attendance is good. And I think this Bayern Munich project is something that can really push not just German but European basketball. So, in my opinion, they are going in the right [direction], and if they keep going how they are going then they have all the tools to become the best domestic league in Europe.”

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Bauermann, Bayern "Almost crushed by snowball"

All is well and good in the southern German metropolis Munich as FC Bayern finally snapped their road losing streak while Artland Dragons coach Stefan Koch was left dumbfounded with his team’s embarrassing start to the top showdown with ratiopharm Ulm. Oh, and Brose Baskets cruised to another win – by 34 points, despite giving 42 minutes of playing time to three Germans 21 years and younger.

Bayern Munich boss Dirk Bauermann was considering bringing in a sports psychologist to talk his players through their nine-game losing streak in the BBL. But Bayern finally unloaded the 5,000-pound gorilla from their back with an 82-72 victory at Phoenix Hagen – Munich’s first road win since beating BG Göttingen on October 15 – to improve their BBL road record to 2-10.

“The relief could be seen on the players. It was pretty crazy in the locker room and the mood on the bus afterwards was superb,” Bauermann told the Abendzeitung daily after the win, which improved Bayern’s record to 13-11, good for seventh place.

“The snowball had gotten so big that it almost crushed us to death. But now the losing streak is over with,” added Bauermann, whose team would have dropped out of the playoff ranks with another defeat.

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Meanwhile, over in Hollywoodland … to no cineaste’s surprise, the silent film The Artist was named “Best Motion Picture of the Year” at the 83rd Academy Awards ceremony. While Tinseltown may have had a decent, if not mind-blowing, twelve months of production in 2011 – as evidenced by Woody Allen taking the “Best Original Screenplay” award for Midnight in Paris with his perhaps 24th- or 25th-best ever script – the year in basketball movies was disappointing to say the least.

In hindsight, no real possibility existed for the 2011 crop of hoops flicks to match the previous year’s output in terms of either quantity or quality, what with ESPN in the midst of its “30 for 30” documentary series. Eight basketball documentaries (nine if you include June 17, 1994) mostly well worth watching – spearheaded by the most excellent Once Brothers – were released in ’10 alongside the barely-seen Saints of Mt. Christopher. Plus, BallinEurope got to crack jokes at Common’s expense while enjoying fave Queen Latifah thanks to the essentially NBA-sponsored Hollywood flick Just Wright – who remembers that one?

And, of course, the artistic achievement of the 2009 tour de force, Who Shot Mamba? by former Yahoo Sports blogger/general comic genius at large has yet to be matched by any human endeavor, so one can’t fault the international film community for not approaching this one.

But come on! By BiE’s count, there were four major basketball film productions crafted in the year 2011. A pair of European documentaries saw no release outside their native countries (more on these below), while the compelling-sounding “Long Shot: The Kevin Laue Story” is apparently still seeking a distributor. How is this possible? Just check out the official synopsis from producer/director Franklin Martin:

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How do you say “Linsanity” auf Deutsch?

BallinEurope supposes that the vocabulary term isn’t quite so necessary in Germany but, according to officials at one Bundesliga club, the phenomenon just might have been visible in Europe last season.

Back in 2010, few observers of the NBA Summer League had an eye on the NBA’s current imagination-catcher (and whoa, did the hype ‘round Ricky Rubio die down quickly, eh?) Jeremy Lin. The lion’s share of attention during that exhibition season was no. 1 draft pick John Wall – this despite Lin’s very nice 13-point, four-rebound, two-steal performance against Wall’s Washington Wizards side.

(As the top-liked comment on the below YouTube notes, “John Wall is a total hipster. He was getting owned by Jeremy Lin before it was cool…” Zing!)

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From the land of Dirk – Nowitzki and Bauermann, that is – David Hein reports on a few happenings in Germany’s top division of basketball. Read on to find out about Bayern Munich considering shrinks; an ever more cluttered playoff picture; the completion of the Top Four German Cup field; and Bremerhaven watching more and more teams pass them.

Hey Doc, We have a problem!
Despite times call for desperate measures, and the bosses at Bayern Munich are considering sending their players to a shrink to figure out how to win on the road. Bayern lost 68-49 to Fraport Skyliners on Saturday, dropping their ninth straight road game in the league (1-10 on the road in the BBL this season) and 13th overall away from home.

With his team owning a 11-1 record at home in the Audi Dome for a 12-11 overall mark, Bayern coach Dirk Bauermann sees the problem clearing in his players’ heads and admitted after the loss in Frankfurt that he has toyed with the thought of bringing in a psychologist for some time.

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Via the Shameless Plug Department, BiE advises readers looking to catch up on German basketball to check out BallinEurope contributor David Hein’s weekly English-language roundup of Bundesliga play – replete with highlights, natch.

Featured this week are blurbs on Brose Baskets Bamberg’s nice run, Bayern München’s abysmal road play and a sick shot from halfcourt by Tony Gaffney of Telekom Baskets Bonn to beat the 24-second clock. O, what the hell: That one BiE’ll run directly below…

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