Basketball: Overtime Crime! DBB secures WM ticket

The German national team has secured its ticket for the 2019 World Cup in China with a real tour de force. Despite a 23-point gap in the meantime, the DBB team wins 112:98 after overtime against Israel.

A disastrous first half seemed to give the Germans their first compulsory defeat for national coach Henrik Rödl. The DBB team around Dennis Schröder, who showed light and shade with 30 points, 13 assists and 7 turnovers, and Robin Benzing (24 points) found the right answer – and finally won in extra time.

“We have to be honest, the game was lost,” Benzing summed up the game after the final siren. “We have been very lucky. The way we played was not worthy of a German national team. The Israelis deserved the victory more than we did, of course. All we can learn from this game is that we did everything wrong.”

Benzing called his team’s performance a disappointing performance, which aptly describes the first half. It took a few minutes until the German national team really arrived in the match. Israel, on the other hand, were wide awake from the start and took a quick 10:5 lead.

Then Captain Benzing, who stayed with his new club Besiktas Istanbul until the end, returned to the national team with a three-pointer to equalise (7th minute), shortly afterwards Schröder provided the first German lead.

However, this did not represent a sticking point for the DBB team. In the second section the Germans had enormous problems with the zone defense of the guests. On the other hand, the pick and roll defense left a lot to be desired.

Also the rotations simply did not fit in many cases. Israel sank three after three, scoring 54 points in the first half and finally broke away to 20 points just before the break.

After all, Rödl seemed to have found the right words in the cabin. Defensively, Germany improved significantly in halftime two and fought their way back into striking distance step by step.

At the beginning of the fourth quarter even the double-digit gap was history (62:70), a few minutes later Schröder shortened with his first three of the evening (in the eighth attempt) to 72:76. Now the Germans had the momentum on their side, which cooked arena in Leipzig.

The Israelis did not succeed much in the offense any more, instead the guests afforded more and more ball losses. Danilo Barthel used one of them to make a fastbreak basket including a foul six minutes before the end after Schröder had played in nicely. With the And-One, the Germans took the lead again for the first time since the first quarter (77:76).

Afterwards Benzing hammered two threes in a row through the cage, but that wasn’t a decision for a long time. The guests were not defeated by Jake Cohen (23 points), the Point Guard actually brought Israel into the lead again.

An offensive rebound a few seconds before the end seemed to bring Israel the certain victory. But the guests threw an airball on a free throw, which brought Germany a last chance. With only 0.4 seconds left on the clock, the Germans managed a spectacular Alley-Oop-Play from Schröder to Maxi Kleber, which saved the DBB team more than happy into overtime.

After a quick five points from Ismet Akpinar and a three of Kleber, the resistance of the Israelis was broken early in extra time. After their eighth victory in the eighth qualifying match, the DBB team remains the Group L leader and has a ticket to the 2019 World Cup in China.