Alpha Berlin’s Masterful Season: Hard Work and Everyone’s Contribution

Jaleen Smith’s last lesson marked the beginning of the Berlin celebrations. When Alpha Berlin’s winger left the ground on Sunday afternoon, there were still 69 seconds left to play in the crowded and hot Munich Audi dome. The Berlin basketball player left the field with a sweat-soaked jersey – and could not have been wider with a smile.

Receptionist on the Bench: A happy Louis Olinde, Mato Low and Johannes Theeman with an equally wide smile ready to hug. Within a minute and a half, the final siren sounded in Munich and Alpha Berlin finally won its third German championship.

48 hours ago things looked so different. With the poor performance of the season, the Berliners missed the first championship match point in the final against FC Bayern on Friday evening. With cold sparkling wine and loaded confetti cannons, there is no chance of a 60:90 against the Bavarian rivals.

Sunday was not like that: in Munich, where the Alpha had already won the championship in the last two seasons, the Berliners played as if they had been replaced. With a 96:81 win over FC Bayern, now with no chance of their share, the Berliners secured a double championship and trophy victory – marking Alba’s exceptionally good season in many ways in this match.

Jaleen Smith is said to have provided the first iconic film. On Friday, Smith struggled hard in his first alpha months. After moving from Ludwigsburg, it took him a long time to settle in the Berlin setting, which was new to him. But at one point he won.

Over the course of the season, Smith became the key player that Alpha looked forward to delivering in the fourth game on Sunday. 90 seconds later, the guard single-handedly stopped Alpha’s yield with two thirds in three games. Smith also chased down four more long-distance goals, sometimes from adventurous distances, despite good defenses.

But another Berliner made a big contribution to Sunday’s good alpha start: Johannes Thiemon. Most surprisingly, Alba’s coach Israel Gonzalez sent him to the ground early in the game to replace Alba’s captain Luke Sigma. There Timon did what he had been doing for months: hitting the back of the basket forward, shining like a passer, passionately defending and rebounding.

When Bayern coach Andrea Trincieri rubbed his forehead to Alba 13-2, Deeman scored seven points and set up Smith’s six points, as if suffering from a series of headaches. “Theman has ten points. We have to stop him,” Trincomalee shouted during a time-out shortly after. Theman, who later won the Most Valuable Player in the Final Series (MVP) on Alba’s victory, is another testament to the great area.

But apart from personal details, Alpha’s performance in Munich showed why they won the championship for the third year in a row. The Berliners followed the hopes taught by their new coach Israel during the Gonzalez season, focusing on improving from game to game rather than focusing on success. Alpha responded almost exactly to Friday’s insult. Defensively, they gave little space to the FC Bayern maneuver.

Fast cycles, body rebound work and long Christ Koumatze as a tower in the zone are the recipe for success. Ahead, Alba combined a brutal pace to make the game more fun and the flow of the game unimaginable on Friday. All the Berliners made a mistake in the third final, performed well in the fourth. After a good 15 minutes with a score of 44:24, Alpha did not snatch the title.

One reason for this: The team around Captain Sigma was recognizing the variance before the final series and led to 19 consecutive wins. Sigma himself changed the regime on Sunday with brilliant references, during which time he sometimes did not see his teammates. Mado Lo, who entered the European Guardian elite during the best season of his career, finally unleashed his momentum this season.

Oscar da Silva has demonstrated why he is currently playing for FC Barcelona. Malto Delo, Alba’s next-door neighbor, has become a pro this season. Israeli Tamir Flat, who was frequently criticized at the start of the season, showed the best form he has gradually found over the past few weeks and months with amazing bass and cheek three-pointers. “Everyone who played paid an incredible amount,” Johannes commented on the MagentaSport microphone after the game was over. At the same time a sentence that is the title of the seasonal history of Berlin.

Nevertheless, four great artists were missing, including Vladimir Lusic, and the injured Bavarians raised the last doubt about the sovereignty of the alpha. A 9-0 run brought them to 15 points in the final quarter and could have caused alpha tension in previous years. But not Sunday. Jaleen Smith responded with lay-ups and three-pointers, and along with his teammates proved that Alpha has learned to deal with difficult situations more confidently this season.

The departures of the summer of 2021 were handled in basically the same way. Again, the managers of the Alpha around sports director Himmer Ojeda were able to make up for the departure of the great artists La Niels Kifi, Simone Fondecio and Jason Granger – not without problems, but successfully. It was due to his successor and former assistant that the departure of the highly influential coach Ido Garcia Renez for many years is not yet serious.

So the last scene with a symbolic character on Sunday was dedicated to the Israeli Gonzalez. At the end of a season with 54 wins in 81 games in all competitions, the Spaniards were the first to hand out medals to their players and then take over the hands of manager Marco Baldi and captain Sigma when the trophy was handed over.

The 47-year-old established the Berliners as head coach at Euroleek in his first season, leading to 19 wins, a trophy and the eleventh championship in club history. . “It’s incredible,” said Gonzalez, who usually composed music, after the trophy was handed over, adding: “My team is fantastic. It only happens if you work hard every day like we did this year.”

At least on the national stage, alpha German basketball is the measure of everything. The Berliners have won three championships and two trophies in the last three seasons. “How we’ve played for the last three years is incredible,” Johannes Theeman commented Sunday. Philosophy Bayern’s achievement towards Europe during the same period: Cup victory. This is the cup distribution that did not just cause a big smile on Jaleen Smith’s face in Alpha and Berlin.

Broadcast: Evening Show, June 20, 2022, 7:30 p.m.