Rostock versus Hamburg – the neighborhood duel in the basketball Bundesliga is an important game for both teams. They want to end their bad streak.
Rostock (dpa/mv) – One thing will be certain late on Sunday evening when the first Hanseatic city duel in the basketball Bundesliga between the Rostock Seawolves and the Veolia Towers Hamburg is history: the winner of this clash can decide about the end of a negative series in the BBL look forward. Newly promoted Seawolves have suffered five defeats after a surprisingly strong start with four wins. The guests from Hamburg have lost four times in a row, and in three of these four games they also conceded more than 100 points.
Despite this record, Seawolves coach Christian Held stated: “Hamburg is playing very good basketball at the moment.” He referred to the appearance of the guests last Tuesday in the Eurocup. Although the Towers were also unsuccessful on the international stage, Held emphasized: “They lost with five points in Trento to a very good Italian team, which is currently fourth in the Italian league.”
Another aspect is that the Towers, like his team, have had to struggle with failures in recent weeks. “They’re just not complete and could only play with parts of the squad. But we expect both McCullum and Childs to be back against us.” A comeback by Kendale McCullum might be inconvenient for the Rostockers. The American had given the Seawolves a headache three years ago in ProA, when he was still active as a playmaker in Paderborn.
“Rostock has an ambitious program. They already had that in the ProA. And it was already clear that they would take another step the moment they came up,” said Towers coach Raol Korner in view of the development of the Seawolves and emphasized: “The squad shows that too. The team is very talented and the signing of the Finnish international also shows how ambitious you are and what opportunities you have.” The task that awaits his team “will not be without it”.
Held was recently able to train with the full squad again. Nijal Pearson, who spent a long time in the USA due to a family bereavement, has returned. Finland international Elias Valtonen makes his home debut after wearing the Seawolves shirt for the first time at the game in Oldenburg last week.
