Hamburg – London Lions

Eurocup Group Stage Round 2

Hamburg, October 10, 19:30 CET

The beginning of the season for Hamburg is disastrous, the team from the German Bundesliga obviously has less quality individuals than in the previous season.

In this situation, the British BBL champions and the best English team London Lions are in an ideal position, to achieve a second victory in the Eurocup group stage on Tuesday. Lions even have a chance to play the best season in European competitions in the basketball modern era, when it comes to British clubs.

Hamburg's previous three defeats revealed the main problems in the team's game. Since the beginning of the month, this team was defeated in the Bundesliga 90:79 by the Euroleague team Bayern in Munich on Sunday, and before that at home by Wurzburg – as much as 88:58. Last week, Ukrainian team Prometey easily defeated Hamburg 97:77 in Eurocup.

All those matches showed that Hamburg did not bring quality options to the center positions, that the team is completely inferior in the fight under the hoop. And the Lions are the group of players that will know how to take advantage of those problems in the opponent's game.

The London club achieved a series of eight victories in a row, and the last time they lost in the British league was at the beginning of April, in overtime. The team had a successful Eurocup campaign last season, which ended with a loss to Spanish Joventut 89:78 in April. Overall, this squad has gained the experience to be able to win matches in a row and on difficult European away games.

At home in the first round of the Eurocup group stage, the Lions beat Italian Venezia 76:69 last week. Against a team that is currently better than Hamburg, American Grantham shone with 23 points and seven rebounds.

However, the key link in the fight to Hamburg could be the experienced British center Olaseni. Against Venezia, he was a reliable option under the rim with ten points and seven rebounds. Team Lions is primarily oriented towards extremely high-quality defense, from where they get chances for easy points in transition. This is how the excellent Venezia squad was defeated, with the famous Italian national team players Spissu and Tessitori, and the excellent Americans Simms, Tucker and Parks.

The London team has 12 players who can achieve a notable score in attack. Hamburg doesn't seem to have a well-rounded defense at the moment, to properly stand up to this rival. First of all, the German club urgently needs reinforcements, and the Lions have the opportunity to achieve an important away victory with their physical and athletic dominance.

Last season in November, the Lions easily won in Hamburg 103:75... Now a slightly harder job is expected, but still another victory for the guests, who are one of the best squads in Eurocup.