On Friday-evening, the second game of the men’s best-of-3-finals-series will be played in Esch at 20:15! T71 won the first game and therefore has a chance to win the series and the title with a victory on the road. Esch wants to force a decisive game 3 on Sunday (20:15) in Dudelange.
In the first game of the series, T71 played well for most parts of the game and took a big lead in the third quarter thanks to great ball movement and finishing around the rim. Defensively, the strategy of the team of coach Ken Diederich worked as Esch was not able to knock down (open) 3-point-shots and finished the game 6 out of 26 from behind the arc. Coach Sylvain Lautié has options to make changes. Against this T71-defense that closes the paint, Esch needs to make more outside shots. It is therefore possible that Kovac, who hit 3 out of the 6 threes by the team in game 1, will see his minutes increase even more (27 minutes in game 1). Esch would also have the option to give sharpshooter Jordan Hicks a chance to play, but he has not played in the crucial games so far. Players like Joé and Pit Biever are also able to knock down multiple outside shots as they have shown against Etzella, especially in the crucial game 3 when Esch made 12 « threes ». Something that worked well for Esch was their zone defense. Diederich said in an interview with his club after game 1 that his team „stopped playing » when Esch went to a zone. It will be interesting to see if Esch will play more zone and how T71 will adapt to that.
T71 faces the same challenges as all season. In game 1, 4 players played 35+ minutes, 3 players (Muller, Ivey, Harris) played all 40 minutes. As a veteran team, Dudelange certainly wants to avoid a game 3 only 48 hours after game 2. Tom Schumacher is in great shape at the end of the season and his career and knocked down a big shot at the end of game 1 to ice the game. Harris has been dominating the play-offs under the baskets and showed some amazing dunks in game 1, another big performance by him (27 points, 15 rebounds in game 1) could also become decisive. An unsung hero of game 1 was Jo Hoeser of the bench, he did not only score 9 points in 18 minutes but also had some great passes. As T71’s input from the bench has been limited all year, Hoeser could give the team a big spark once again.
Dudelange looks very focused and determined to win the title but Basket Esch is a dangerous opponent and has shown in the series against Etzella that they are able to come back from a 0:1 deficit. Game 2 will certainly become another big showdown for all basketball fans.
Picture: Maya Straus
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