65:71-defeat against table-thirds Hamburg
RSV Lahn-Dill had to digest their second defeat of the season last Sunday at Inselpark Arena Hamburg. One week after the washout in Thueringen the team had to go home with a deserved final score of 65:71 (13:12/27:33/49:57) against BG Baskets Hamburg.
Even though the defeat does not have any impact on the RBBL table, the timing could not be worse. Not only did the defeat happen only five days before the start of the Champions League quarter finals in Wetzlar, but also does the win enforce Hamburg mentally for the Playoff-semi-final for the DRS Cup.
“We’re currently not playing at the level that we could, and which we need for this final bit of the league.” said Nicolai Zeltinger brutally honest after the game, but was already looking ahead again: “We don’t have a lot of time and have to get ourselves going by the fact that we’ll be playing at home in front of our own spectators, and try to get the last two games out of our minds.”
It didn’t take two minutes into the game for RSV to be behind 0:6. This score was only the second bit of bad news for the team, after Swiss National Player Phillip Haefeli had to drop out shortly before the game due to stomach issues. “This obviously took a lot of options away from us.” said Zeltinger. Still, the team tried to fight back, which seemed to work with a three-point-play by Piotr Luszynski. After the 5:12 (7th min) score, RSV seemed to be back, even getting the lead just before the end of the first quarter with 13:12.
The game went on level for a few minutes, until RSV had their last lead in the 13th minute after Luszynski scored the 19:18. Until the 21:26 (16th min), only Annabel Breuer had managed to score for her team. At half-time, RSV were behind 27:33, also due to 9 missed free-throws.
After changeover, nothing really changed. RSV fought back after Kozai had scored the 31:39 (23rd min), and even got to 37:39 (26th min) thanks to Koehler, Luszynski, and Paye, but then the 28-year-old Japanese was unstoppable. At 41:51 (29th min), Kozai had already scored 19 points, which he increased to 23 points by the end of the game, scoring a fantastic 83 per cent.
The BG Baskets went off to 50:61 (34th min), before it looked like the wind might change. Three minutes later, Briton Joe Bestwick got close again at 57:61, and then Luszynski in the 38th minute with 59:63. But in the end, it wasn’t enough, and Hamburg got their deserved win. “We can’t lose a game like this, even when missing we are missing one of our starting five.” said Zeltinger after the game.
Hamburg: Hiroaki Kozai (23/1 Dreier), Reo Fujimoto (19), Ghazian Choudhry (13), Jake Williams (12), Kai Möller (2), Anne Patzwald (2), Matthias Heimbach, Nik Goncin, Mitsugu Chiwaki (n.e.), Karlis Podnieks (n.e.).
Lahn-Dill: Michael Paye (17), Piotr Luszynski (15), Dirk Köhler (10), Joe Bestwick (9), Jan Haller (5), Nico Dreimüller (4), Thomas Böhme (3), Annabel Breuer (2), Björn Lohmann, Philipp Häfeli (n.e.), Christopher Huber (n.e.).