Alba Berlin wins German title after major comeback in Munich
Alba Berlin won the German basketball championship after one of the most dramatic finishes in the recent history of the easyCredit Basketball Bundesliga. In the fifth game of the final series, played on June 21, 2026, at SAP Garden in Munich, the Berlin team defeated FC Bayern München Basketball 84:81 and closed the series with a 3-2 result. According to the league’s official report, Alba secured the victory after trailing by 20 points at halftime, 47:27, before scoring 57 points in the second half and completely changing the rhythm of the game. The finish was especially significant because Bayern was playing in front of its home crowd, with a chance to defend the title, while Alba arrived in Munich after two games in which it had already had to save its season.
This title carries multiple layers of importance for Alba. According to easyCredit BBL data, the Berlin club thereby reached its 12th German championship title, and the victory in the fifth game in Munich entered the league’s historical framework because, in the digital era of the competition, since 1999, it was the first time that an away team had won the decisive fifth game of the final. The league also emphasized that the final series between Bayern and Alba, with a combined score of 418:414 for Berlin, was the closest in the history of German finals. In sporting terms, it was a title won against favored Bayern, the winner of the regular season and a club with home-court advantage, but also against a team that led 2-1 after the third game and had a match point.
The comeback that changed the final
The game started openly, with Alba making a very good attacking entry, but Bayern found a defensive answer after the opening minutes. According to the official description of the course of the game, the home team ended the first quarter with a 25:20 lead, and then in the second period completely slowed Berlin’s offense. Alba scored only seven points in that stretch, which the league marked as its lowest output in a single quarter during the season. Bayern used a 16:3 run to move into a double-digit lead for the first time, and went into the break with a 47:27 score and a sense of control that is usually enough for a title in such a final.
However, after halftime the game took a completely different direction. According to the easyCredit BBL report, Alba already surpassed its offensive output from the entire second quarter in the first two minutes after the restart, and Malte Delow and Jonas Mattisseck sparked a run with three-pointers that quickly brought the deficit back into single digits. In the 25th minute Bayern still led 55:46, but the dynamics of the game had already changed. Berlin again began to play faster, rebound more firmly and punish every pass that slowed Munich’s attack. Justin Bean’s three-pointer at the buzzer further lifted the visitors’ energy, and in the final quarter Alba hit a series of outside shots and took a 67:66 lead seven minutes before the end.
The finish remained uncertain until the final possessions. The lead changed hands, Bayern relied on the individual quality of Andreas Obst and the experience of its leaders, while Alba increasingly looked like a team that had found emotional and tactical balance. According to the league’s official report, the key blow was delivered by Martin Hermannsson, who hit a mid-range shot 45 seconds before the end and gave Alba the decisive impulse. Bayern had a chance to come back before the end, but failed to reverse the rhythm that increasingly belonged to the visitors over the final 20 minutes. The 84:81 result marked the end of the game, the end of the final and the beginning of one of the most impressive title celebrations in the history of the Berlin club.
Justin Bean led the team and took the Finals MVP award
The most important individual in the decisive game was Justin Bean. According to the easyCredit BBL announcement, the American power forward finished the game with 18 points, 12 rebounds and five assists and was named the most valuable player of the final series. His impact was not only statistical, but also structural: Bean helped on the boards, stretched the game, found teammates and maintained Alba’s attacking rhythm in key moments. The league described him as one of the key players of the series, and his performance in the fifth game especially stood out after Berlin’s very modest second quarter.
Jonas Mattisseck also finished with 18 points and, according to reports from Germany, was one of the emotional leaders of the comeback. Malte Delow added 14 points, while Jack Kayil scored ten, all in the final quarter, further confirming why his name was increasingly mentioned during the final as one of the more important names of Berlin’s future. According to the league’s official numbers, the three players born in Berlin, Mattisseck, Delow and Kayil, combined for 42 points in the fifth game. Such a contribution from home-developed players gave the title additional symbolism for a club that has for years presented itself as a system combining youth development, European experience and high domestic ambitions.
On Bayern’s side, Andreas Obst stood out the most, as according to reports he scored 24 points and was the home team’s leading scorer. His shooting kept Bayern in the game, especially in the first half, but in the closing stretch there was not enough stability in offense to stop Alba’s surge. Bayern controlled the rebounding battle for a long time, but according to the league’s official data Berlin ultimately won that segment as well, 39:38. That was important because rebounding had been one of the decisive elements throughout the series, and Alba began collecting the balls that had previously slipped away from it precisely during the comeback moments.
A final series full of rhythm changes
The path to the title was not linear. According to the schedule and results published by official and media sources, Bayern opened the series with a 102:94 win at SAP Garden on June 12, after which Alba responded two days later, also in Munich, with an 86:79 victory to level the series at 1-1. The third game was played on June 17 in Berlin, where Bayern won 91:83 and took a 2-1 lead. The fourth meeting, played on June 19 at Berlin’s Max-Schmeling-Halle, sent the series back to Munich because Alba won 71:61 after a major defensive turnaround. That made the decisive fifth game not only a fight for the title but also a test of endurance for two teams that knew each other well from numerous previous finals.
It is particularly telling that Bayern gave up a significant lead in the fourth game before doing the same in the fifth. According to a dpa report carried by Welt, the Munich team led by ten points in the third quarter of the fourth meeting, but then suffered a major drop and lost 61:71. In the fifth game the lead was even bigger, 20 points at halftime, but even that was not enough. Such a pattern gave the entire final a clear narrative line: Bayern had the quality and experience to build leads, but did not have the stability to hold them, while Alba showed an increasing ability throughout the series to survive critical periods.
For Alba, the entire playoff path carried additional weight because, according to the league’s official report, it played the maximum five games in every round. In the quarterfinals it trailed Vechta 1-2, in the semifinals it had to respond against Bamberg after heavy away defeats, and in the final it was again on the brink of elimination against Bayern. Because of that, the league described the Berlin team as a generation that will go down in history as a team of great comebacks. That description is not only a metaphor, because the comebacks repeated themselves in different contexts, against different opponents and under increasing pressure as the season approached its end.
Pešić left without the perfect farewell
The final also had a strong personal dimension because of Svetislav Pešić. According to the league’s official report and German media, the 76-year-old Bayern coach ended his coaching career with this very game. His sixth German title would have been a symbolic conclusion to an exceptionally long career, in which he won titles with Alba and Bayern and led teams to the greatest international successes. Instead, his final appearance ended with a defeat in his home arena and a trophyless season for Bayern.
After the game, according to the Welt report, Pešić openly accepted part of the responsibility and said that he had not succeeded in creating a functional team from the players. That statement resonated because it came after a game in which Bayern seemingly had everything: home court, a large lead, a psychological advantage and a chance to close out the final series. According to the same report, the experienced Niels Giffey, a former Alba player in Bayern’s jersey, described the defeat as extremely frustrating for the locker room. Such reactions show that in Munich the defeat will not be remembered only as a lost game, but as a missed season in which the team failed to stabilize itself in the most important moments.
Bayern had moments of high quality in the final, especially in the first and third games, but in the closing meetings it lost control of the game precisely when the title was closest. According to the dpa report, Pešić failed to find a simple explanation for the drop in the fourth game, and the fifth meeting only deepened the impression that the problem was repeatable. For a club that entered the series with the ambition of defending the title and confirming its status as the leading German team, the end in its own arena represents a heavy sporting blow. Given Pešić’s departure, Bayern also enters a period of coaching transition after this final.
Berlin and Munich continued to define German basketball
The rivalry between Alba and Bayern has determined the top of German club basketball for years. According to easyCredit BBL data, the 2026 final was the seventh final meeting between the two clubs since 2014, meaning Berlin and Munich surpassed the historical pattern of finals between Bayer 04 Leverkusen and Berlin. Across those series Bayern still holds the overall advantage at 4-3, but with its 2026 victory Alba changed the tone of the more recent period and once again showed that it can win titles in Munich. The league recalled that Berlin’s last titles in 2020, 2021 and 2022 had also been concluded in the Bavarian metropolis.
The 2026 title is especially important because it came in a season in which Alba was not presented as the obvious favorite. According to club previews ahead of the final, Berlin entered the series against the regular-season winner and without home-court advantage, while Bayern carried the weight of expectations as defending champion and as a more expensive, more experienced team. In such a context, the title is not just another trophy in the club cabinet, but confirmation that the Berlin organization can still build a team capable of the highest level of domestic competition. The contribution of young German players, the experience of foreigners and the tactical adjustment of coach Pedro Calles together shaped a finish that will be analyzed for a long time.
For the German BBL league, the final series also brought a broader sporting signal. According to the official report, players from the German national-team base had an unusually large impact in the finals, with more than half of the total points and minutes produced by domestic players from both rosters. That is important for a competition that seeks to position itself as a development league, but also as a league of competitive clubs in the European context. In a season without a major national-team tournament during the summer, as the league notes, many players will after the final get a calmer transition toward the new season for the first time in a long while. For Alba, that transition will begin with a title won after the maximum number of games, after a 20-point deficit and after a victory that changed the historical statistics of deciding games.
What the title means for Alba
Alba’s triumph in Munich was not just the result of one extraordinary half. It was the peak of a series in which the team survived more turning points than many champions experience in an entire playoff run. According to the league’s official report, in the decisive game Berlin scored 57 points in the second half after its worst attacking quarter of the season, won the rebounding battle and hit key shots in the closing stretch. That is a combination that shows resilience, but also basketball maturity, especially for a roster in which young players had such an important role.
For Bayern, the defeat raises questions about the way the team lost leads in the final two games of the series. According to the available reports, the club had scoreboard control in the decisive game until halftime, but did not find an answer to Berlin’s aggression after the break. Given the end of Pešić’s career and the absence of a trophy in the season, the analysis will likely focus on the structure of the team, the distribution of responsibility and the ability to close high-pressure games. On the other hand, Alba will remember the title as confirmation that even a final that looks lost does not have to end in defeat if the team maintains intensity, depth and belief in its own system.
Sources:
- easyCredit Basketball Bundesliga – official report on the fifth game of the final, Alba’s title, series statistics and historical data (link)
- ran/Joyn – overview of the final series, game results, date, venue and SAP Garden data (link)
- Welt / dpa – report on Alba’s title, post-game statements and the context of the fourth game of the final (link)
- Welt / dpa – report on Svetislav Pešić’s reaction after Bayern’s final defeat (link)