ACB - semifinal - matchday 3
Joventut Badalona
73 83
Finalized
Real Madrid
Real Madrid goes back to the tie and returns to take advantage in the semifinal against Joventut, who in the first game surprised with Kayle Guy, in the second he saw how the fountain dried up after a relentless marking of Hanga and in the third he lived moments in which he overwhelmed the Badalon team, lack of energy despite the push of the Olympic. However, after reaching 30 points of difference, Madrid had to sweat ink in the final minutes when the greens approached five.
From start to finish Real dominated, which immediately exceeded ten points advantage in the first quarter, to stabilize their game and point to the best players of Joventut for their non-appearance. Again Guy was dwarfed by the defense posed by Chus Mateo, and neither did Tomic or Vives, very reluctant to throw. With the name of Xavi Villanueva on the back, the home players could not pay tribute with their game to the manager who died three days ago.
Madrid continued to do their thing, stealing, dominating the rebound and appearing under the opposing basket to go, step by step, distancing themselves in the luminous. Tavares, powerful in defense, but who was left without scoring, prevented any reaction under the boards to the tall men of Joventut. Although the stands of the Olympic chanted every foul he committed, nobody could destabilize the Madrid giant. The rent at the end of the first partial was 9 points (16-25), but it was increasing with the beginning of the second. With a huge Musa (5 of 7 in shots of two at the end, and 3 of 6 in triples), the Bosnian shortstop bled the home team with each shot. At halftime (32-48), the difference was already huge for Madrid, very difficult to overcome, although Guy greened in the final minutes with 13 points that gave a breath of hope to his team.
The second half was worse for the Penya, which conceded a partial of 5-19 so that the score was placed in a scandalous 37-67, thirty points below and with many minutes ahead. Only Guy stood out in the Joventut, with a Madrid in orfeón mode, and then the dilemma that Carles Durán had to solve opened. I had the option of deciding to stop thinking about the game that was being played and start preparing the next one, also at home, or to give the battle until the end as if the third clash were Thermopylae.
And the truth is that, perhaps thinking about the first, the Joventut coach began to get the second. He put less usual players on the field, far from his starting quintet, and his team began to bite the difference on the scoreboard. Basket by basket, with Madrid narcotized by a result that was insurmountable, he arrived at the last minutes always behind, but closer than ever on the scoreboard.
Never, in the whole match, except in the initial two minutes, was Joventut less than six points behind Real, and 1.10m to finish, the difference was reduced to only five. The partial of 31-11 shattered the predictions that had been made ten minutes before, but Birgander, Kraag and also Guy gave another air to the game before the Madrid bewilderment. Five points can be an abyss, but also a small gap. However, Joventut drowned on the shore, logic prevailed and in the last attacks too hasty, with Chus Mateo imposing calm among his hosts, Madrid applied its law to extend the distance to ten points at the end of the game (73-83), a more logical marker for what had happened in the game, But that forces reflection on the white side, which in those ten disastrous minutes (30-13), was unable to score and lost the overall numbers of the rebound (36 by 39).
In spite of everything, Durán, the green-and-white coach, acknowledged at the end that, "Madrid has dominated us in everything, although we have made a good last quarter". Now his team is left with a task of titans. No team has come back from 2-1 down in the semifinals of the ACB, of course stranger things have been seen. Like the last quarter madridista.
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