He did not tremble on the final day of the Euroleague, and became strong at the Movistar Arena, where he has only let one defeat escape this season. Sergio Scariolo’s team completed a great performance on their field, where they added their eighteenth victory (103-82) against Red Star, which ensures third position and a chance for second if Valencia loses this Friday in Bosnia against Dubai.
Real Madrid always steps safely at the Movistar Arena. There he has laid the foundations of his season in the Euroleague, where he is practically invincible. The white team has only lost one game and that was five months ago. This Thursday’s game was especially important: a victory on the last day ensured third place and statistics show that 81% of the teams with home court advantage, the prize for the top four finishers, reach the Final 4.
The problem was that Red Star was in front, with options to enter positions of playoffs and save the play-in. knew how to play against Madrid for many minutes, causing many losses, with a great intimidator under the basket like Joel Bolomboy, and exploiting the defensive lack of the white team, which conceded many comfortable shots that Red Star took advantage of to score baskets from the 6.75m line (eight triples in the first minutes).
Tyson Carter was a cover and Jordan Nwora surpassed Mario Hezonja and anyone in front of him in attack. With all that, Madrid felt very thick and that hurt them on the scoreboard (19-25). Until the white awakening came, which improved on the rebound, another weakness, and, with good minutes from Trey Liles and Theo Maledon, reemerged in attack. The defense increased its intensity and, with Sergio Scariolo’s team already launched, Campazzo returned to do his thing and finish accelerating Madrid. The eleven-time European champion’s beacon led his team to its maximum advantage (56-44 at halftime) after a basket that the Argentine dedicated, winking, to Luka Doncic, a self-confessed Real Madrid fan, sitting in the stands due to the injury that has kept him off the courts along with the great tennis legend Novak Djokovic, who was suffering from seeing the Serbian Red Star below.
Real Madrid once again bled on the rebound in the second half. Red Star survived the game thanks to those second chances. Those stinkiest minutes were lived calmly by Scariolo, who kept Campazzo safely on the bench so that he would be fresh when the alarm went off and he had to finish the game. And if the South American winked at Doncic at the end of the second quarter, Sergio Llull went to shake the Lakers player’s hand after his umpteenth tangerine to close the third quarter with a very favorable result for his team (77-63).
Red Star had more and more problems containing the dam that Lyles and Maledon were beginning to break, as they scored and drew fouls from their defenders. As . Real Madrid ended up disarming their rival, who finished without arguments against a much superior opponent.
Thursday’s match saw Baskonia defeat on the court of Partizan Belgrade (91-79), coached by Spaniard Joan Peñarroya, despite another good game by Guinean Mamadi Diakité (20 points and six rebounds). The one that did not fail was Olympiacos, which closed the regular season as leader with 26 victories after beating Milan (85-76).
