Reigning champion U18 Real Madrid opened the defense of its Euroleague Basketball Adidas Next Generation Tournament title with a convincing 66-93 victory over U18 Maccabi Tel Aviv at the ANGT Finals. The three-time continental title-holders started pulling away in the second quarter and was never challenged the rest of the Group A game, winning the rebound battle 52-35. Eli Ndiaye paced six Real players in double figures with 16 points, 11 rebounds and 4 assists, Ismaila Diagne scored 15 points with 10 rebounds, Urban Klavzar and Henri Veesaar both had 13 points and Sediq Garuba and Amadou Doumbia each tallied 10 points in the win. Maccabi’s leading scorer was Shachar Doron with 14 points with Roi Behar scoring 11 points and Ofri Naveh adding 10 points in the loss.
Real opens title defense with comfortable win over Maccabi
Doumbia scored the first points of the game from the foul line and Baba Miller made it 0-4 early on. Doron hit a three-pointer for Maccabi’s first score with Klavzar draining a triple as the lead was 3-9. Maccabi was able to stay close at 12-13 before the Spanish power went on a 2-8 spurt to pull ahead 14-21. Veesaar added two scores for Real and the score was 19-25 after 10 minutes.
Diagne came off Real’s bench and picked up four points to get the advantage to double digits 19-31. Maccabi needed more than 3 minutes to score through Doron, which did not slow down Real with a 5-15 run including a Nikolas Cebrian three-pointer for a 26-46 cushion. And the score was 31-50 at intermission.
Real tallied the first five points of the second half to increase the margin to 24 points. Maccabi tried to make it interesting with three three-pointers as the gap was down to 40-58. Real just had too many weapons with Klavzar and Garuba both hitting a triple and Veesaar converting a three-point play as the lead grew to 46-71. The score was 51-77 after 30 minutes.
Doumbia had the first points of the fourth quarter to increase the gap to 51-79. The Spanish offense stalled at that point with Maccabi reeling off an 11-2 run to cut the deficit to 62-81. Real answered with 10 straight points to decide the game for good.