Madrid, goal accomplished

He Madrid He will face the three remaining days of the regular phase with his homework completed and even corrected. The note is necessarily good, that of a diligent student, although sometimes more shine is called for. Not this time. The victory against Fenerbahçe (90-75), which they have beaten there and here by an aggregate of 29 points, mathematically gives them home court advantage in the quarterfinal playoffs, the great European objective from October to April. Now he is only waiting for the rival who will touch him at the crossroads. The setback of AS Monaco in Kaunas also makes it very difficult for the Whites not to finish in the top three, where being the leader does not necessarily guarantee a better match than being third. The possibilities are still very wide, so we will have to wait, because His adversary could be from Partizán to Maccabi through Fenerbahçe, Baskonia, Zalgiris… and even Efes. In the fight between the first three, yes, they have lost the tiebreaker with both Olympiacos and Barça.

The Turkish team, which even wore the lead in its day, still has options to finish in the top four, but it looks like they will play the playoff without a home court factor. He arrived in Madrid without Wilbekin or Pierre, something touched collectively as well, and leaves with four defeats in the last six days. He could not with a tremendously choral rival, involved at the back and aware of sharing the ball, with up to 27 assists15 more than the Fener (only 11 losses), and seven players in 9 or more points and 57% in triples (122 to 65 in evaluation). Musa went up to 16 points (9 of 9 from the personal, eight fouls received) in 16 minutes, Poirier finished with 11, like Hanga (and seven basket passes from the Hungarian). Rudy once again provided a quality presence, with three important triples and four assists. And watch out for Deck, who only scored three baskets, although he grabbed eight rebounds, made five passes, recovered two balls and finished with a PIR of 23.

The duel started with rhythm (Hanga, again, starting point guard). Real shared the ball very well (eight assists in the first quarter and six more in the second) and executed open shots wonderfully, also in transition (8 of 11 triples at halftime, three without a miss by Cornelie). He moved well on his back, a good connection between the low post and the high post, plus some hits from Yabusele to the past ring. Poirier took advantage of the extra minutes by the two fast personal of Tavares. In front, the ex-azulgranas Calathes and Hayes added almost half of the points of their squad at halftime (20 of 44), but Itoudis’ men did not defend well. And there Madrid gave another turn of the screw in the second half until they suffocated the rival: barely 31 points conceded without Motley (with fault problems) neither Guduric would really show, nor Dorsey nor Edwards, nor Calathes, which stood up, so much of the work was done.

The start of the third quarter, with a 7-0 run (a three-pointer by Hanga, a basket by Musa from Palomero and a mate by Yabusele), put the Whites in orbit. Chus Mateo it rotated quite and very well among its top 10 (Tavares, only 13:20 on court) and left Causeur and Abalde without acting. Madrid has met three days in advance and is equal with the leader, Olympiacos (22-9), with a 71% win rate.

real Madrid

Statistics

28 Guerschon Yabusele
14 Gabriel Deck
8 Adam Hanga
31 dzanan muse
22 Edy Tavares
17 vincent poirier
5 Rudy Fernandez
13 Sergio Rodriguez
eleven Mario Hezonja
twenty-one Petr Cornelie
1 fabien causeur
6 Alberto Abalde

Statistics

	Min	pts	RT	RO	DR	Ast	Per	rec	Tap	T1	T2	T3	FR	CF	Val
28 Guerschon Yabusele	29	9	5	2	3	0	1	0	0	1/2	4/7	0/1	2	3	7
14 Gabriel Deck	26	6	9	1	8	5	0	2	0	0/0	3/4	0/0	4	1	24
8 Adam Hanga	19	eleven	2	0	2	7	0	1	1	2/2	0/1	3/5	2	1	twenty
31 dzanan muse	16	16	2	0	2	1	0	0	0	9/9	2/2	1/3	8	0	25
22 Edy Tavares	13	4	1	0	1	2	3	0	1	0/0	23	0/0	1	3	2
17 vincent poirier	26	eleven	4	0	4	1	0	0	2	1/2	5/8	0/0	2	2	14
5 Rudy Fernandez	22	9	4	0	4	4	2	1	0	0/0	0/0	3/6	1	4	10
13 Sergio Rodriguez	twenty	5	2	0	2	5	4	0	0	0/0	1/3	1/1	1	2	5
eleven Mario Hezonja	16	10	3	0	3	2	0	0	0	3/3	2/5	1/2	2	4	9
twenty-one Petr Cornelie	7	9	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0/0	0/0	3/3	0	2	7
1 fabien causeur	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0/0	0/0	0/0	0	0	0
6 Alberto Abalde	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0/0	0/0	0/0	0	0	0

fenerbahce

Statistics

eleven nigel hayes
33 Nik Calathes
23 Marko Guduric
31 Devin Booker
0 jonathan motley
22 Tonye Jekiri
27 tyler dorsey
13 Tarik Biberovic
4 carsen edwards
8 Nemanja Bjelica
2 Shemus Hazer
37 Kostas Antetokounmpo

Statistics

	Min	pts	RT	RO	DR	Ast	Per	rec	Tap	T1	T2	T3	FR	CF	Val
eleven nigel hayes	33	17	5	1	4	1	0	0	0	1/1	5/6	2/4	3	2	twenty-one
33 Nik Calathes	29	12	6	1	5	6	1	0	0	0/2	3/7	2/7	2	2	12
23 Marko Guduric	22	10	2	1	1	2	1	0	0	3/4	2/2	1/5	4	3	9
31 Devin Booker	twenty	9	3	2	1	0	1	0	0	0/0	3/4	1/1	2	3	9
0 jonathan motley	14	6	4	1	3	0	2	0	0	0/0	3/8	0/0	1	4	-1
22 Tonye Jekiri	25	6	6	2	4	1	1	2	0	4/4	1/2	0/0	4	2	fifteen
27 tyler dorsey	twenty	6	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1/1	1/4	1/4	2	1	-1
13 Tarik Biberovic	fifteen	7	2	1	1	0	0	1	0	2/2	1/3	1/2	2	2	7
4 carsen edwards	8	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0/0	1/5	0/2	1	2	-7
8 Nemanja Bjelica	6	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0/0	0/0	0/1	0	1	-1
2 Shemus Hazer	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0/0	0/0	0/0	0	0	0
37 Kostas Antetokounmpo	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0/0	0/0	0/0	0	1	-1