The 28-year-old forward provided the spark that led to the German team's comeback against Real Madrid
Isiaha Mike pulls off career-high night as Bayern bounces back from adversity
Informes de partidos
3 Min lectura
Regular Season
Round 7 of 38
Regular Season
FC Bayern MunichBAY
9084
Real MadridRMB
Overview
w
l
l
w
l
l
l
l
w
w
Sometimes a spark could be enough to turn a team’s season around, and FC Bayern Munich will hope that Tuesday’s comeback win over Real Madrid is the right step in that direction.
Two straight EuroLeague defeats were followed by a loss at rival ALBA Berlin in the German League last weekend, with Bayern struggling to build momentum in the opening stages of the 2025-26 campaign.
Then came that spark in the form of a relentless Isiaha Mike.
The Bayern forward produced a historic outing against Los Blancos, inspiring the hosts to a 90-84 victory at SAP Garden.
The German side hit the ground running with a 13-2 run, but Real Madrid fought back and secured a 44-57 lead at halftime. Ghosts from last week’s thrashing at the hands of Olympiacos Piraeus were coming back to haunt Bayern, but this time Mike was having none of it.
Having already scored 15 in the first half to keep his team in the game, the 28-year-old netted 5 straight points to open the third quarter, kickstarting Bayern’s comeback. Mike went on to add 7 more points to his tally, with the hosts taking a 69-67 edge heading into the closing quarter. Real Madrid pushed for a late comeback, but Bayern never looked back.
“We were struggling, man,” Mike told EuroLeague TV after the game. “We were struggling lately and finally we had a third quarter where we responded after going down big. It felt good to finally get some energy, being down in the hole like that. We were giving up a lot of easy baskets inside [in the first half]. So we just became more physical [in the second], stepped over a bit more in the help side. Tried to take away their size advantage and get on to transition. And it worked for us.”
After holding the guests to just 10 points in the third quarter, Bayern outscored them 21-17 in the fourth to clinch the comeback victory. Mike provided the spark, with Xavier Rathan-Mayes, Kamar Baldwin and Oscar da Silva chipping in to down Real Madrid.
“We did a really good job tonight of being resilient, fighting adversity,” Rathan-Mayes said after the game against his former team. “Obviously, the start of the season wasn’t what we wanted it to be. We’ve continued to stick together with this group of guys, this group of brothers has been really good in sticking together and making sure that the energy is positive. We are on the same page together.”
Rathan-Mayes nailed a triple and a layup before drawing an offensive foul at the other end and producing back-to-back assists to open the fourth quarter in style. Baldwin stepped up to make it 77-72 and Da Silva came to the fore to open a double-digit lead (82-72), as Real Madrid struggled to find answers against Bayern’s small-ball.
“We talked about it this morning,” head coach Gordon Herbert told the post-game press conference. “We were down. We were going through some adversity, some failures.”
Mike recorded career highs in points (29), rebounds (7), two-pointers made (6) and free throws made (8). Having lit the fuse for the team’s fightback against Real Madrid, the Bayern forward will look to bring that same energy into Thursday’s home clash against Virtus Bologna.
The match has been set alight and as Herbert stressed after Tuesday’s duel “sometimes you’ve got to go through [adversity] to get where you want to get to.”
