Two days after the defeat in Braunschweig, Alba Berlin just avoided the next setback in the Basketball Bundesliga. On Tuesday evening, the Berlin team won against MLP Academics Heidelberg with 96:89 (47:45) in front of 6,689 spectators in the Max-Schmeling-Halle. But the capital city team had to tremble until the end, so they remained second in the table. The best Berlin throwers were Johannes Thiemann with 21 and Sterling Brown with 19 points.
World champion Thiemann returned to the hosts, but point guard Martin Hermannsson sat out with a slight injury. While Alba hardly had any centers in the last few weeks, they now had to make do without a real playmaker. A total of five regular employees are still missing. Alba initially coped well with this.
Heidelberg scored the first points, but the Berliners immediately countered with a 14-0 run. They were able to pull away by 14 points at the end of the first quarter (28:14). But then the ball losses and missed throws increased. And Heidelberg started to score better, especially from distance.
Shortly after the break, the guests equalized to 47:47. The game was now evenly matched. After a good 26 minutes, Alba was suddenly 61:64 behind. So it stayed tight until the end. With 101 seconds left, the hosts were able to pull ahead decisively to 96:83. And then they couldn’t take it anymore.