'Chef' Trinchieri: the recipe of Bayern's special that stunned Barca / News - Basketnews.com

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It's been another breaking point for Bayern after the first five minutes in the Palau Blaugrana.

Player of the Game EFF 29 Deshaun Thomas Points 25 Accuracy 9-13 Rebounds 7 Assists 2

Bayern's starting center Leon Radosevic injured his ankle and left for the locker room.

Vladimir Lucic received two quick fouls and sat on the bench, throwing a towel angrily.

Andrea Trinchieri got fired up quickly and got an early technical.

Barcelona woke up after a sluggish start and was about to steal the momentum of the game.

With two starters, Darrun Hilliard and Corey Walden sidelined (they combined for 31% of total teams' points on average this EuroLeague season), it was easy to let the hands down, especially facing the best EuroLeague regular-season team.

But Bayern wouldn't be Bayern if they wouldn't continue fighting.

They came out on top after the first quarter (23-18) and went off for an early second-quarter run behind DeShaun Thomas, which poured in 10 points in a row.

Jasikevicius went crazy with his players, fans were killing refs, but Bayern precisely built a solid halftime lead (47-31).

When the hosts made a run at the end of the third (56-61), Andreas Obst showed up with two painful 3-pointers in the last 20 seconds of the third quarter to give some breathing space (67-56).

When the game was on the line again in the middle of the fourth quarter (65-72), seven different players scored for Bayern in the last six minutes.

When most basketball fans predicted a sweep, Bayern came out with a huge win 90-75.

"The whole team stepped up. DeShaun Thomas, and Andreas Obst, I believe, played an amazing game with a great personality," Andrea Trinchieri said in the press conference.

FC Bayern Munich / Schedule

FC Barcelona FC Bayern Munich77-67 FC Barcelona FC Bayern Munich75-90 FC Bayern Munich FC BarcelonaWed18:30

"I go home with a feeling that my team didn't fear playing against the best. This is a good feeling. Then, all the rest, the series, 1-1... I don’t care," Trinchieri concluded.

"I would like to congratulate my players. I'm very happy for them. They put together a great game from the jump ball to the very end. We fought. We played with great intensity and energy. I believe we deserved to win this game against a great opponent, great coach, and great system," he added.

He had many reasons to be proud of in Game 1 as well, but Bayern fell short 67-77. But even in their toughest moments, like losing their top-scorer Darrun Hilliard in the third quarter due to injury and being down in double-digits, Bayern fought until the last second anyway.

"I'm really tired now," Trinchieri described his feelings after a historical playoff road win for Bayern.

"I'm happy for my players because when they told me at the end of the third quarter that Hilliard has a triple clavicula fracture, I said this is not possible. When I came back to the hotel, I was very sad because the only thing you don't want as a coach that your player suffers an injury. Knee, covid, clavicula... Madre mia," Trinchieri spoke about a challenging year for Hilliard.

"Everybody was asking what would happen, about the surgery, etc. But then I saw the team coming together and thinking about the next game. We didn't think about what we can't do, which was play Hilliard. We tried to find different ways to play," the coach continued.

Bayern found ways to compete when it was almost impossible to stay competitive at the EuroLeague level all year long.

Going through numerous injuries, three covid outbreaks, and crazy circumstances, including playing two games in two days, Bayern shouldn't have been there. But this team never surrendered.

At the end of the first quarter, there was a possession that gave a perfect picture of this Bayern team.

Instead of chasing for the rebound until the end, Nicolas Laprovittola tried to box out Bayern's players with the ball coming out of bounds. But Nick Weiler-Babb ran from behind and dived like Dennis Rodman to save the ball. He tipped it to Othello Hunter, who quickly passed it closer to the paint, and Augustine Rubit converted it to a mid-range jumper.

This resilience became a brand of Bayern Munich in the last couple of years. But it's something which is not given.

Credit R.Molina/EuroLeague Basketball via GettyImages

Somehow, Trinchieri managed to build this character for his players from day one of the season.

"I have a very general plan. I try to understand who is the alpha dog in my team. I try to understand who players will look at," Trinchieri explained how he has been building the team's character. Of course, he did it in his way.

"I‘m like a chef. You can have spicy. You can have salty. You can have sweet. I have to understand what fits the taste of my players. I know I'm not a big shark in the sea. I can't hunt all the fishes to make the roster.

So I'm not a white shark. But can I be a barracuda? That is very fast, nasty. So I have to find a way to inspire my players to be barracudas," Trinchieri went from one comparison to another.

"There are many teams that are better than us. But there's a game, and they have to be better. Many teams were better. After the game, I said bravo. But sometimes we're able to overcome things because we believe that we can do something," Trinchieri continued.

"I can't tell what I do because I don't know. Next season will be totally different again. Some teams need to be provocated. Some teams need to be pushed. Some teams need to wait until the cake is ready," Trinchieri added. "You can't do anything, you just have to see how the cake grows in the oven. And hopefully, the taste is good."

The taste of a playoff victory is always excellent. Especially for a team that went only for the second playoff run in the club's history.

Once again, Bayern created an underdog story and will get a lot of support from basketball fans around Europe that would love to see them taking down the primary candidates to win the title this year.

But Trinchieri knows what's coming now.

"I'm very happy for my organization. This is our second year in the playoffs in ten years of history. The basketball section is something new here. We still have milk here on the mouth.

But with Hilliard having surgery this morning, Radosevic being out of the game after three minutes, Walden not playing for 55 days, coming here and beating Real in Madrid and Barca in Palau Blaugrana in 15 days is very important for our organization," Trinchieri was nothing but proud of his guys.

"But I'm very realistic, and I'm not flying too high. I know it will be a war. We're going to play the best. Last year Barca was 1-1 after the first two games. They're not even eyebrow nervous for this game. They're pissed off because we played better tonight. But their target is to destroy us on Wednesday. And we have to know it," Trinchieri puts his team on alert. "We have to put on the helmet, the armor, and be ready to play."

The best-of-five series is heading to Munich. Bayern will host Barcelona on Wednesday and Friday.

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