Mario Hezonja, Real Madrid: 'Everybody wants to beat us'

Their star forward is well aware that the defending champions will have to earn the right to retain ownership of the EuroLeague trophy.

Real Madrid forward Mario Hezonja sat down recently to reflect on current role of Real Madrid in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague and the four-OT game against Anadolu Efes Istanbul last January.

In his debut season with Real Madrid, Hezonja was a big factor in taking the team to the 2022-23 EuroLeague title. Now, almost a year later, Los Blancos are showing no signs of slowing down. They currently top the standings and just became the first team to qualify for the playoffs. It would not be a big surprise, at this point, to see Real make a serious run at back-to-back titles, which the winningest club in European basketball has not done in more than 50 years.

"Everybody wants to beat us," Hezonja says. "Even now that the team is at the top, you can't afford a single second of thinking 'OK, we are good, we have the advantage'. No. It doesn't matter."

Hezonja's current season is probably his strongest yet. He earned his first MVP of the Month award in December. Right after that, he was a protagonist in the longest game in EuroLeague history, a four-overtime showdown against Anadolu Efes that Real managed to finally take by 130-126. Hezonja finished the game with 31 points. He had the winning shot in his hands at the end of regulation time, but he missed. However, he became be a key figure again in the extra sessions and hit the three-pointer that put the win in the bag for the hosts.

"You need to have an extreme level of confidence, belief in yourself, in your team," Hezonja explains. "We were finally able to break it."

Now having arrived first to the playoffs, Real Madrid will not settle for that. Home-court advantage in the postseason is next on the team's agenda, and new goals will follow, game by game, until the final one is reached: keeping the EuroLeague trophy.