The 28-year-old guard came through when Bayern needed him
Nick Weiler-Babb was again Bayern's silent leader against Virtus
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Regular Season
Round 6 of 34
Group Regular Season
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FC Bayern Munich edged Virtus Segafredo Bologna 84-87 on Tuesday night for its first road win of the season. Nick Weiler-Babb was a major reason why. He was simply all over the place.
In his fifth season with Bayern, Weiler-Babb is playing some of the best basketball of his career, helping Bayern in many different aspects of the game. Against Virtus, he finished the game with 14 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 steals and just 1 turnover. Weiler-Babb was coming off another great all-around performance against Olympiacos Piraeus in Round 5 in which he tallied 10 points, 6 rebounds, 9 assists and 1 turnover for a PIR of 20.
Weiler-Babb has been efficient all around, committing just 9 turnovers in over 156 minutes on the floor so far this season. His assist-to-turnover ratio (2.44) is one of the best in the league. In the last two games, Weiler-Babb boosted that ratio to 6 to 1.
He stepped up at all times during the game, too. He had 3 points, 2 rebounds and 2 steals in a 0-13 run that gave Bayern a 25-30 lead midway through the second quarter. When Virtus tied it at 68-68 with over 7 minutes left, Weiler-Babb buried a critical jumper off a timeout.
Virtus took an 82-79 lead with over a minute left and Weiler-Babb took matters into his own hands, burying a three-pointer from the left wing, grabbing a rebound at the other and finding Shabazz Napier to hit the go-ahead shot from downtown with 5.0 seconds remaining.
Napier had missed all of his six shots from beyond the arc until that moment but buried a highly-contested, step-back three-pointer that put Bayern in charge for good.
"When I missed my last three, I think it was like 1:30 left, I told myself that I was going to make a big shot. And I was fortunate enough to be in a position to do so, and my teammates believed in me," Napier said after the game.
"So I'm definitely grateful that it went in, and obviously it was a tough shot. I'm excited for this team and what we can continue to accomplish. One of the biggest things to do in the EuroLeague is win on the road. If you can get a win on the road, it's big time for the standings. So for us today, that was our main focus and we accomplished that today."
Bayern is set to look for its fourth consecutive win on Friday, when it visits LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne in Round 7.