Chacho’s top hat – AS.com

Ups and downs were not lacking, moments of going up and others of certain wear and no fluidity, but Madrid grabbed the win (72-56), which was what it was all about after chaining two defeats in the Euroleague (Olympiacos and Barça). An impulse to continue working because he has a task ahead of him (19 losses, for example, and very concentrated in a bad section). The best thing this time was the staging, which Sergio Rodríguez took out his top hat (8 assists and essential to break the collective jam phases) and that Deck, hypercompetitive, got even for the poor performance on Wednesday against Sloukas and company (12 points, 9 rebounds and 5 passes for a PIR of 23). At the Red Star, terrible shooting percentages that even an accurate Ben Bentil did not compensate for (17 goals with 6 of 10). We saw Luca Vildoza eagerly on his return to Europe: he wants to get his spark and his genius out as soon as possible, even if he grouped more failures than desirable.

Madrid had a very good first quarter, which stretched until 31-13 in the 13th minute, and a very weak second, in which he bottled up in attack and lowered his level behind until conceding a 4-15 run that narrowed everything down again: 35-28 after two consecutive three-pointers by a motivated Vildoza. The Argentine point guard began somewhat hastily and failed, also from the personal. Then he warmed up and brought life to those from Belgrade, also influenced by the activity of John Holland and the entry of Hassan Martin.

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Chus Mateo preferred to watch his team, he had said so in the previous one, and found two opposite faces in the first half. From the start he chose Abalde as the base (well, matazo in penetration included) and Cornelie of power forward (equally well at the beginning) as great novelties. At his side, Musa, Deck and Tavares. A very high five that showed a good level behind and that prevented the rival from starting with the fixation of attacking Sergio Rodríguez’s pair. El Chacho would enter this time in the middle of the first act with his creativity in the pass at maximum levels. He looked with great criteria for Poirier’s continuations, which he did not materialize all of, but he felt very comfortable supplying balls. In five minutes, six assists from Tenerifeand the Whites ended the opening quarter with a +15 (25-10).

After the first complete rotation, the Llull, Causeur, Hezonja and Yabusele quartet disconnected from each other. Losses, a workhorse in previous duels, went from just 2 to 16 in just over 15 minutes. An infernal rhythm of deviations, impossible to put together the game like that and the badly managed individual impulse began to weigh. More movement without the ball is missing. In addition, Cornelie did not short-tie Bentil’s 3-pointers and The Red Star felt wings grow: 44-42, minute 24.

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It was time to defend and create with the ball. And we saw the one, after almost six minutes to zero for the Serbian team, and the other, when El Chacho appeared with the plunger in his hand and this sequence: assist, 2+1, another basket pass at the end of the third quarter and triple after recovery already entered the last. Severe whiplash, 13-2, and Rodríguez went to the bench. He cheered from the fans to the top hat of him.

There was still a match left and between Bentil and Hassan Martin they distressed the stands: 59-54 at 3:30 from the buzzer. The shadow of Olympiacos, more than elongated, was very close (48 hours before) and could still be seen and felt. Tavares solved the mess with a casimate and a completely kill more additional after a precise pass from Yabusele. There the adversary gave in in the midst of great work by Deck, who took revenge for the setback with those from El Piraeus. Musa added and the first double shift is behind, six more remain. The Euroleague does not stop stinging upwards.

Red Star

statistics

50 Ben Bentil
1 Luca Vildoza
10 Branko Lazic
0 John Holland
9 Luka Mitrovic
33 Filip Petrusev
13 Ognje Dobric
2 Stefan Lazarevic
12 Hassan Martin
27 Stefan Markovic
20 Nikola Ivanovic
15 Miroslav Raduljica

statistics

	Min	Pts	RT	RO	RD	Ast	Per	Rec	Tap	T1	T2	T3	FR	FC	Val
50 Ben Bentil	24	17	5	0	5	0	1	1	0	2/2	3/4	3/6	4	3	19
1 Luca Vildoza	17	10	1	0	1	4	4	2	0	0/3	2/7	2/6	3	2	1
10 Branko Lazic	16	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0/0	0/0	0/0	0	0	0
0 John Holland	15	7	0	0	0	1	2	0	0	1/2	0/2	2/4	2	1	2
9 Luka Mitrovic	13	2	4	1	3	0	0	0	0	0/0	1/5	0/0	0	2	-1
33 Filip Petrusev	7	0	5	2	3	0	0	0	0	0/0	0/1	0/1	3	1	5
13 Ognje Dobric	25	8	1	0	1	1	1	1	0	3/3	1/2	1/8	2	2	1
2 Stefan Lazarevic	24	2	3	0	3	0	0	1	0	2/2	0/0	0/1	1	5	1
12 Hassan Martin	17	8	2	1	1	0	0	0	0	2/2	3/4	0/0	1	1	9
27 Stefan Markovic	15	2	0	0	0	3	1	1	0	0/0	1/1	0/2	0	2	1
20 Nikola Ivanovic	12	0	1	0	1	2	0	2	0	0/0	0/1	0/3	3	1	3
15 Miroslav Raduljica	4	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0/0	0/0	0/0	0	2	-4