The Spanish team restored its confidence with an emphatic win over Bayern on Friday
Real Madrid ready to resume historic rivalry with Olympiacos
Članak
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Real Madrid failed to feast from their first bite at the playoffs cherry by losing at home to Paris Basketball on Tuesday, but Chus Mateo’s men made sure they savored their second chance by dominating FC Bayern Munich in Friday’s all-or-nothing play-in showdown.
The Spanish giant started fast by scoring on the first possession as Gabriel Deck hit a three-ball, and it soon raced into a double-digit lead with a 12-0 run featuring 4 and 5 points respectively from offensive leaders Facundo Campazzo and Mario Hezonja. And that was that. Real didn’t look troubled from that moment onwards, with Bayern never getting any closer than 10 points down as the home team controlled the tempo and rhythm throughout to grab a 93-71 victory that was every bit as comfortable as the scoreline suggests.
Accurate shooting from long range played a major part, especially in the first quarter when Real made 7 of its 8 attempts from three-point range, with seven different players on target. And although that pace couldn’t be maintained, the Spanish team recorded more than solid shooting percentages by going 18 of 30 from two-point range (60%) and 15 of 28 from beyond the arc (53.6%), in addition to dishing 24 assists.
And so Real advances as the eighth and final playoff qualifier to face regular-season standings leader Olympiacos Piraeus in a true classic of European basketball.
Real and the Reds have matched up in three title games in the last 12 years, most recently two years ago when Sergio Llull’s buzzer-beater gave Los Blancos the crown in the most dramatic fashion possible. There was also a semifinal in Berlin last season, also won by the Spanish team, 87-76, after a 20-point performance from Dzanan Musa.
But Olympiacos enjoyed a clean sweep in this regular season with a 79-69 home victory in Round 6 followed by an emphatic 86-96 triumph in Madrid in Round 22, as 25 points from Evan Fournier led five Olympiacos players with double-digit scoring.
All told there have been 42 meetings between the teams this century (Real has 23 wins, Olympiacos 19), the sixth-most repeated matchup in competition history – which would rise to third place if the upcoming series goes the distance to five games.
And it’s clear that despite becoming the last team to qualify for the playoffs, and giving up home-court advantage to the team that led the regular season standings, Real will have absolutely no fear of failure as they head to Greece.
“Now the most important time of the season starts for us,” said Hezonja, who led his team’s scoring against Bayern on Friday with 19 points.
“We know that we didn’t play beautiful basketball during the year. We tried to find a lot of rhythm with different rotations, and it’s been hard for the staff and the players. But when we get out with the best players and the leaders of the team, everything falls into place and it’s easier to play. Now the most important part is starting.”
Although the turnaround for Real between the play-in and playoffs is just four days, with a Spanish league game in-between, Hezonja has no concerns whatsoever about his team’s preparedness to face Olympiacos.
“We’re absolutely ready,” he insisted. “If somebody’s not ready I don’t know what to tell you! It’s the most important time, a lot of players have been through this type of moment, and that helps us a lot. We need to have everybody on the same page if we want to win EuroLeague this year.”
Winning the EuroLeague looked like a distant prospect for Real during much of the regular season. But now it’s time for the playoffs, and the 11-time champion is on the trophy trail once again.