In the last dramatic act, after an impeccable path, Madrid lost its way and was left at the gates of glory. A painful and surprising defeat due to how it occurred, since they began showing their best basketball to end up showing their worst face in a long time, being surpassed athletically and emotionally by an excellent Panathinaikos. The Greeks showed their best version and during the forty minutes they always had order, endurance and judgment. It did not break down with the rush of Chus Mateo’s men, it suffocated the two Madrid game directors, Campazzo and Sergio Rodriguez, short-circuiting his usual offensive creativity. He got Tavares into trouble at the first opportunity, and he had a fateful night. He made the most of a player who was sometimes erratic but with many points in his hands like Nunn. And he always had a lighthouse called Sloukas, the soul of the Greek team, MVP of the game and who grew as the game progressed until breaking down what was left of White’s resistance in the middle of the last quarter. Nothing to object, therefore, to the Greek success.
Madrid collapsed at the most unexpected moment. They came to this final with the guarantee of having been by far the best team in the Euroleague, which they confirmed in the semifinal with a brilliant victory against the always uncomfortable Olympiacos. Not only that, but during the first quarter they played, especially in attack, like the angels. Similar to what happened in the semi-final, Madrid showed unusual offensive figures in a four-way final. The targets nailed up to thirty-six points in ten minutes.
Although they continued to dominate on the scoreboard, during the second quarter Madrid began to give clues that the night was not going to be easy. As the minutes passed, offensive fluidity, defensive efficiency and, above all, aim were gradually lost. Shooting has two components, the purely mechanical and the mental. When the first fails, the second comes into play. Those triples that have been scored throughout the season began to be denied, and Madrid entered into a pernicious dynamic that had its maximum expression in the second half.
Faced with the increasingly sticky Greek defense, Madrid became obsessed with wanting to find the net from afar to ward off ghosts and did not know or could look for other alternatives. Each failure was a preview of the next error. The precipitation increased and the pause decreased while the statistics reached very poor percentages rarely seen in this team.
In these circumstances, with an increasingly grown Panathinaikos, the appearance of a savior was urgently needed, that player who rises above everyone and changes the dynamics. It didn’t happen. Neither Hezonja, horrible in the throw, nor the penetrations of Musa, nor the magic of Chacho, the impossible shots of Llull or the intimidation of the Tavares-Poirier couple. Chus Mateo tried to reactivate the team with a zone, which was destroyed by Sloukas with two consecutive triples. Madrid was no longer there for almost anything.
At the worst moment, Madrid has failed. A great disappointment because it means not achieving the main objective of the season. He doesn’t have much time to grieve, because on Wednesday Barcelona arrives at the Palace to begin the semi-final series of the ACB League. Although sometimes we forget, there is no infallible team. This Madrid seemed like it, but Panathinaikos turned him into a human.
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