Finals in German basketball: Bayern are too exhausted to prevail against Ulm

Perhaps a look at Devin Booker best describes the state of Bayern's basketball players on Saturday evening. Booker, a bear in the shape of a man, 2.05 meters tall, weighing 113 kilograms, almost crushed his opponent Ulm with his force at the beginning. The 34-year-old hit two free throws to make it 2-0, then went up for a dunk to make it 4-2, and followed it up with another to make it 6-2. It was a little one-man show by the giant from Whitmire, South Carolina, which captivated the 11,500 spectators in the sold-out SAP Garden. What could possibly go wrong in the third game of the playoff final against Ratiopharm Ulm?

In short: A lot went wrong for the Bayern basketball players that evening, which now also serves as a warning sign for this series. After the completely unnecessary 79-81 (42-37) defeat in a ultimately disjointed and by no means high-quality game in front of their own fans, the Munich team is on the verge of missing out on the championship. Ulm needs only a home win on Tuesday (8 p.m.) to win the best-of-five series 3-1. And the stars are aligning for the Swabians: They have only lost one league game at home this season, and they are still undefeated there in the calendar year 2025.

She is Germany's leader at the European Championships at home: Leonie Fiebich on famous fans at games in New York, the lack of support from the German Basketball Association for women's basketball - and her colleague Sabally's decision to withdraw from the national team.

And Booker? The Bayern center, often a rock in the fray this season, more or less disappeared from the scene after his spectacle at the beginning, despite his total of twelve points. He trudged across the court, and his plus-minus rating, which indicates whether his team scores more or fewer points than the opponent while he was on the court, was worse than any other player: -24.

The defeat cannot be blamed on Booker, but the American, who suffered a knee injury in February and twisted his ankle in the playoff semifinal against Heidelberg, is representative of Bayern's all-encompassing problem: They have been on their last legs for weeks, are exhausted from more than 80 games this season, almost half of which were in the Euroleague, and seem - mentally and physically - no longer capable of prevailing against Ulm.

Not Booker; not Andreas Obst, whose two successful three-pointers are too few for a world champion who is also a co-captain and has higher expectations; not captain Vladimir Lucic, who also disappointed this time. And not Nick Weiler-Babb, arguably the league's best defender, who looked unlucky against Ulm, contributing two turnovers to the team's total of 14 turnovers (Ulm only committed ten). Another statistic, incidentally, that documents a team's level of exhaustion. Because turnovers are simply a sign of a lack of concentration and mental fitness.

Booker has often been seen limping out of the locker room after home games in recent weeks; on Saturday, Munich's second center, Elias Harris, stood in the hallway wearing a knee brace. Harris will be out for months, and key shooter Carsen Edwards has been injured since mid-April. Oscar da Silva was back in the squad for the first time in many weeks, but he didn't play.

Coach Gordon Herbert, who wasn't exactly a fountain of energy at the press conference last night, said things like, "Our starters looked a bit tired and struggled to get into their rhythm and move the ball. Our one-on-one defense wasn't where it needed to be." He also said that the game had become too static towards the end. It didn't help that world champions Niels Giffey and Johannes Voigtmann, and to a lesser extent Shabazz Napier, played very well. In the end, Herbert even had to put up with the question of whether his substitutions that evening were a good one - in any case, he took Giffey and Voigtmann off the field in the decisive phase. The intention: exhaustion. "We didn't make the right decisions up front. Very bitter," Voigtmann said later.

Ulm, on the other hand, which has played around 20 fewer games this season than Bayern, but has a smaller roster due to fewer financial resources, appeared more effective. More aggressive, more passionate. Coach Ty Harrelson's team could also rely on its sporting life insurance in the end: the American Justinian Jessup. The 27-year-old led Ulm back from a 71-77 deficit to 77-77, then scored a decisive three-pointer to put Ulm up 80-79 and converted one of his two free throws with 7.4 seconds left to complete the game. "He's one of our keys and kind of a dream player," Harrelson later praised Jessup.

Ulm's victory was perfect, and the underdog can now become German champions for the second time on Tuesday, after 2023. It would be their third title ever; Ulm won the cup in 1996.

The already enormous centrifugal forces at Munich are intensifying further. Longtime sporting director Marko Pesic has announced his departure at the end of the year, and Coach Herbert, although he still has a contract beyond this season, will become the Canadian national coach starting in the summer of 2026. It's quite possible that the 66-year-old is now entering his second and final year as Bayern coach. Furthermore, there are numerous transfer rumors surrounding key players such as Edwards, Weiler-Babb, and Booker.

"Of course, it's also a psychological thing," Herbert said, looking ahead to the fourth final match. The World Cup coach has a master's degree in sports psychology and is considered a brilliant presenter and motivator. His website states: "No one will break us." But everything points to Ulm handing Bayern and their coach a title-less season.