FC Bayern basketball players start the awesome week confidently with a win in Rostock.

The FC Bayern Munich basketball players started a fantastic week with four games in eight days with an ultimately easy 80:70 win over the Rostock Seawolves. The Euroleague guest games in Monaco and Milan follow on Tuesday and Thursday, before Oldenburg comes to Munich in the Basketball Bundesliga (BBL) on Sunday. After the 98:93 win on Thursday against Maccabi Tel Aviv, it was also a strenuous affair for the heavy favorite against the Seewölfe from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, despite all the quality in the squad.

For Rostock it’s about taking part in the playoffs, for Munich nothing other than the title matters. If you asked Uli Hoeneß, he would have promised the fans a long time ago. Nevertheless, the Hanseatic city also has very good professionals in its ranks, such as Bryce Hamilton. Trained in the American College League, the 24-year-old played in the Los Angeles Lakers’ farm team before signing with Patras for a season in Rostock after a brief stint in the Greek top league. In the BBL he scores an average of just under 20, and in games like the one against the big Euroleague club FC Bayern, players like Hamilton are in the showcase. And he took advantage of the opportunity, was the best scorer of the evening with 25 points and played a key role in the hosts’ 40:38 halftime lead.

However, there is no comparison to the Munich staff, who after such games are always faced with the problem of explaining why the fans’ expectations were not met: sweeping every BBL opponent off the floor. Perhaps a look into the head of any Bayern player will help to explain this: the ball bounces off the basket, the Rostock defender dives with his massive body for the ball, the Munich attacker hesitates for a moment – and the ball is gone. That split second can make the difference in a close match.

Complicated task: Coach Herbert has to give his top players fun and breaks

But should an actor like Shabazz Napier, for example, who protects his nose, which has been broken for the third time, with a face mask, be blamed for not throwing himself into the fray in every scene regardless of the losses? A former NBA professional who was brought into the team to help Bayern reach the Euroleague playoffs and not necessarily to keep Rostock down.

For the Seawolves it was the game of the year, they fought, played well, never gave up – but couldn’t stop the Munich team from doing their job. Bayern have too much quality for that, including in the second row. Players like Onuralp Bitim (7 points), NBA-tested loan from Fenerbahce Istanbul, Niels Giffey, who has recovered from a broken finger, world champion, Kevin Yebo (13), who earned a place at FCB as a whiz kid in the last BBL season, or Oscar da Silva (6), who moved into the starting lineup.

It is the coach’s complicated task to give his top players enough rest time given the enormous demands, but at the same time win the championship and the cup – and move into the Euroleague playoffs. And no one seems to be as suitable for this as world champion coach Gordon Herbert: In Rostock he allowed his leading players around Carsen Edwards (17 points) and Andreas Obst (14) enough fun – but also breaks. Without risking victory, which also has the advantage that the second guard stalks closer and closer to the players as the minutes increase. And Herbert knows that he needs every player to achieve his goals.