The play-offs start this Saturday for the 8 qualified women team of the LBBL.
Games on Saturday:
17:30 Résidence – Basket Esch
18:00 T71 – Etzella
18:00 Musel Pikes – Amicale
18:30 Gréngewald – Contern
League leader T71 has lost only game in the championship competition this season and this loss was against Etzella, their opponent in this first round. However, Dudelange will enter this series as the heavy favorite, Shalonda Winton returned last week and the team is at full strenght before the start of the series. Secon placed team Résidence has won the cup competition this season and is now trying to win the double. They have won the first two meetings clearly against Basket Esch (89:71 and 71:49) but lost the third meeting on a last-second shot by Tatsiana Likhtarovich 2 weeks ago. The Musel Pikes will face Amicale Steinsel, a team they have beaten 3 times this season so far. Gréngewald earns home court advantage against Contern but Contern was able to beat the « greens » last week so that this series between the 4th and 5th seed should become very interesting.
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Only one out of the four first round play-off-series in the men`s play-offs will be decided in a game 3, it is the derby between Résidence and Amicale. The team from Walferdange entered the play-offs as the number 2 seed and therefore earns home-court-advantage against the number 7 seed Amicale.
The first game ended with a 105:96 win for Résidence as the home team stormed back in the second half behind 39 points by Alex Stein and 31 points by Armon Fletcher. In game 2, Amicale’s Jarvis Williams stole the show with 39 points and led his team to a 92:88 home win. The two games have shown that both teams are playing on a similar level, it will come down to the team that has the better day on Saturday-evening. The winner of this game will face Etzella in the semi-finals.
Amicale’s head coach Etienne Louvrier said in an article by mental.lu that the „bigger pressure is on Résidence » and that „this game will be decided in our heads ». (full article –> Etienne Louvrier : « La pression sera sur Walferdange » (mental.lu) ). The head coach of Résidence, Alexis Kreps, says that the pressure will face on Saturday is just „normal pressure. Every team faces that every game. This is why we play the game. We love to compete and play basketball.“ With everything on the line in one game, this should become a very entertaining game to watch. Tip-off will be at 19:30 in Walferdange.
Every team wanted to avoid the relegation group before the season. And the clubs certainly had good reasons to avoid this group because there is a lot of pressure in a 4-team group where only the best team is sure to stay in the first league next season. The second placed team will play a best-of-3 series against the third best team of the National 2, which could be Zolwer, Bascharage or Mondorf.
The current standings:
Contern – 34 points (24 games)
Musel Pikes – 32 points (23 games)
Telstar – 30 points (23 games)
Racing – 28 points (24 games)
At this moment, Contern is leading the 4-team group but they have also played one more game than the Musel Pikes. One decision has already fallen because Racing Luxembourgcan not reach the second place anymore, the team from the capital will play in the second league next season. Telstar trails the Musel Pikes by 2 points and Contern by 4 points.
Games on Saturday:
20:00 Musel Pikes – Contern
20:30 Telstar – Racing
On Saturday, Telstar desperately needs a win over Racing to put more pressure on the Musel Pikes and Contern. In fact, Telstar could come as close as 1 point to the Musel Pikes. The team from Hesperange will definitely enter this weekend’s game with a lot of momentum as they clearly beat Contern 104:69 last week.
