The two combined for 39 points in Tuesday's victory
Hezonja and Yabusele stepped up for undermanned Real Madrid at ALBA
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Real Madrid managed to secure a hard-fought 79-86 victory despite taking to the Mercedes-Benz Arena floor without key guards Sergio Rodriguez and Sergio Llull, neither of whom travelled to Germany. Rudy Fernandez also missed out, while Dzanan Musa was a last-minute scratch and ALBA Berlin made the most of Los Blancos’ absences to hit the ground running on Tuesday night.
ALBA took a double-digit lead (26-16) into the second quarter and was up by 4 (40-36) at halftime. The hosts even took a 13-point lead (51-38) 3 minutes into the third quarter, but Real Madrid forwards Mario Hezonja and Guerschon Yabusele came to the fore to turn the game around. Having scored at least 10 points in six of his previous seven games, Hezonja finished Tuesday’s clash on 22 points, shooting 5-for-6 from inside the arc, 2-for-5 from deep and a perfect 6-for-6 from the charity stripe.
Hezonja also grabbed a game-high 8 rebounds for a Real Madrid side that dominated the boards, outrebounding the hosts 25-44. One of the most important rebounds of the night was picked up by Yabusele with 36 seconds left on the clock. Walter Tavares had just missed his second straight free throw with the score at 77-81, when the Real Madrid forward outmuscled his opponents to down the offensive board and finished from inside to give Los Blancos a 6-point cushion.
“We have a lot of players,” Hezonja noted in the post-game interview. “Sometimes it’s bad for us, sometimes it’s good. But it’s a next-man-up mentality too. There are a lot of guys who are still sick. We have a lot of health issues and injuries, but we keep going no matter what. Every game matters for us. It doesn’t matter that we are first, we want to keep going and win the league again.”
Winning away at Berlin was an important step in that direction, as a few days after clinching playoff qualification, Real Madid has managed to seal home-court advantage with four games to go.
“We’re going to try to improve our record and our game too,” head coach Chus Mateo noted after the game. “We will fight to go to the Final Four. It’s not going to be easy for sure, because the EuroLeague is the toughest competition in the world.”
Having improved to a 24-6 record, Los Blancos will now visit a hostile Stark Arena, where Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade will host Real Madrid in a rematch of last season’s incredible playoff series. It remains to be seen which players will be available for Thursday’s clash, but the Spanish side proved again on Tuesday night that it has the squad depth to end the last double-round week of the season in style.