RSV manage to negotiate obstacle in Hamburg

Clear 85:51-success for RSV Lahn-Dill in the Elbe-city
Top-of-the table team RSV Lahn-Dill has mastered another hurdle in northern Germany when they won away against BG Baskets Hamburg 85:51 (26:16/49:27/69:33). The Hamburg team, who got very close to a sensation against RSV-rivals RSC-Rollis Zwickau and only a day after their game against Lahn-Dill triumphed against RSB Team Thueringen, had to acknowledge RSV’s dominance in the game.
RSV-coach Nicolai Zeltinger did not have reason for joy at the start of the game. The hosting team was able to take advantage of their guests’ lack of aggressiveness in their defence, and had scored eight points after four offences. Only after the 6:8-deficit (5th min) the RSV-defence woke up and above all managed to control Japanese Hiroaki Kozai a bit better, who so far has been scoring 30 points per game for his team.
The team was also able to manage the two strong and fast Dutch players Robin Poggenwisch and Marc van de Kuilen better, who were hardly able to make use of their speed. Captain Michael Paye was able to pull the RSV-strings competently, whilst Juniors-world-champion Thomas Boehme and US-American Steve Serio were flying over the court and under the HSV-basket. The team went via 22:10 (8th min) and 41:21 (16th min) towards the road to success before half-time already, whilst Hamburg was really only kept in the game by two threes by Kozai and the abilities of Czech centre Lukas Hartig.
The game continued the same way after half-time. Especially the RSV-offence presented a convincing play with a high hit-rate. Bjoern Lohmann and Felix Schell played without missing, whilst Serio (87%) and Joe Bestwick (75%) kept their stats very high as well. This way the guests were able to take off towards the highest difference in points at 69:33 (30th min) and safe their energy a little bit. In the fourth quarter Hamburg’s former RSV-players Gesche Schuenemann and Annika Zeyen scored seven and two points against their guests and therefore corrected the score a little bit in their favour.
“It took us a couple of minutes to find into the game, but then our defence started working.” said happy assistant-coach Ralf Neumann after the game. Head-coach Nicolai Zeltinger highlighted especially the work of Boehme, Serio and over all Jan Haller. “I really liked the role he played in this game.”
Hamburg: Lukas Hartig (13), Hiroaki Kozai (13/3 Dreier), Gesche Schuenemann (7), Marc van de Kuilen (4), Jan-Niklas Neuroth (4), Robin Poggenwisch (4), Nikolaus Classen (2), Dirk Thalheim (2), Annika Zeyen (2), Edina Mueller.
Lahn-Dill: Thomas Boehme (24), Michael Paye (18), Steve Serio (15), Joe Bestwick (7), Dirk Koehler (7), Jan Haller (6), Bjoern Lohmann (4), Felix Schell (4), Annabel Breuer, Christopher Huber, Thomas Gundert, Marco Zwerger.

RSV-Magazin Defense