After the men’s play-offs were opened last week with game 1, the pressure will be on 4 teams on Saturday evening as Heffingen, Arantia, Sparta and Amicale face a « do or die » game in their best-of-3-series.
Games on Saturday:
20:00 Arantia (0) – Etzella (1)
20:00 Heffingen (0) – Basket Esch (1)
20:30 Amicale (0) – Résidence (1)
20:30 T71 (1) – Sparta (0)
The number one seed Sparta faces elimination on the road against the number 8 seed Dudelange. T71 entered the play-offs with all the momentum after their last-minute qualification on the last game day of the regular season. Now, the defending champion has a chance to realize a major upset on Saturday. Sparta has had problems over the last weeks, Lavone Holland was not able to play in game 1 of the series and a lot will depend on his status for this decisive game. In game 1, 2 new professional players stepped to the court (McLean for Sparta, Greenwood for T71), a special situation this late in the season.
Number 2 seed Résidence stormed back in the second half in game 1 to defend home court against Amicale. Now, the team of coach Alexis Kreps will have the chance to advance with a road win at their neighbour Steinsel. Amicale will have to stop Alex Stein who was unstoppable in their first matchup last week.
Etzella took advantage of home court against Arantia as the the team will try to finish the series in Larochette. Arantia is known to be a strong team at home (7:4 home record during the regular season) and wants to use this as an advantage to force a decisive game 3 (in Ettelbruck).
The first game between Esch and Heffingen ended with a blowout win for Esch. Heffingen needs to regroup and show the real strenght of the team as the team played a strong season and now needs a home victory against the cup winner.
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In the women’s LBBL, the last game day before the play-offs is scheduled.
All 4 games are scheduled for Saturday:
17:30 Etzella – Résidence
18:30 Musel Pikes – Basket Esch
18:30 Amicale – T71
18:30 Gréngewald – Contern
At this moment, T71 is sure to enter the play-offs as the number one seed, Gréngewald will enter the play-offs as the number 4 seed, Basket Esch is the number 7 seed and Etzella will start as the 8th seed. This means that Résidence and the Musel Pikes will fight for the 2nd seed while Amicale and Contern will play for the 5th seed this weekend.
In the direct comparisons in case of a tie, Amicale earns the tie-breaker against Contern while Résidence earns the tie-breaker against the Musel Pikes.
The men’s National 2 is entering the decisive phase as league leader Gréngewald is one win (or a loss by their rivals Bascharage or Zolwer) away from promoting to the LBBL, the greens play on the road against Kordall on Saturday. However, Bascharage and Mamer will not play this weekend because their game has been cancelled because of the Covid-19 virus.
