FC Bayern is German basketball champion

"I'm proud of the boys. We've been through a lot in this series, but they showed character and deserved the title," said Gordon Herbert after the decisive fifth game in the final series for the German basketball championship.

The FC Bayern coach was almost as exhausted as his players. The Munich team had defeated ratiopharm Ulm 81-77 (48-41) at home, securing the decisive third victory to make it 3-2 in the best-of-five series.

Ulm in the decisive game without Essengue

Before that, however, they had made things exciting. The win in Game 1 was followed by two losses. Ulm had the chance to clinch its second championship title after 2023 in front of their home crowd on Tuesday evening, but missed the match point. In the end, Bayern celebrated, crowned German basketball champions for the seventh time.

Ulm was without their young star Noa Essengue for the final two games of the series. The 18-year-old flew to New York for the NBA Draft and was selected by the Chicago Bulls with the 12th overall pick of the first round. Teammate Ben Saraf, who stayed in Germany and played against Munich, went to the Brooklyn Nets with the 26th overall pick of the first round.

Four world champions in the Bayern squad

The Munich team includes four players from the German national team, which won the 2023 Basketball World Cup : Andreas Obst, Johannes Voigtmann, Niels Giffey and Justus Hollatz.

Added to this is Herbert, the World Cup-winning coach who joined Bayern before the season . For the 66-year-old Canadian, this was his second German championship title. He won the first in 2004 with the Frankfurt Skyliners. However, Bayern missed out on the other two titles they were aiming for, in the Euro League and the German Bundesliga Cup.

"We really wanted it and are overjoyed that our hard work was rewarded. The energy was good in the first half, but not really there in the second half. Then you just have to find other ways to decide the game," said Voigtmann about the rollercoaster of emotions and announced: "Now we're going to really let it rip."