Barça-Real Madrid in the ‘final four’ of the Euroleague: chronicle, result and scorers

BarcelonaFrom Tangana to the final of the Euroleague. Real Madrid eliminated Barça and the title of the top European competition will be played against Olympiacos (66-78). The Catalan team lost for the fourth time in a row a European semi-final against the eternal rival. After the defeats of 2013, 2014 and 2022, the negative streak was extended. Kaunas, where the Culer club had placed many hopes, turned into a nightmare.

Nikola Mirotic played his worst game as a Barça player. The power forward, who didn’t score until the final quarter, finished with just 3 points. His hit rates were a disaster. The Montenegrin, the highest paid player in the competition, missed nine of the ten shots he attempted.

Àlex Abrines (16 points), Nico Laprovittola (12) and Kyle Kuric (11) were among the few Barça players who had a good game against a much superior Real Madrid that soaked up Edy Tavares’ interior dominance. The pivot finished with 20 points and 15 rebounds. “It’s bullshit, we can’t do anything other than ask for forgiveness. We’ve stumbled against the same stone again, it hurts a lot,” acknowledged Abrines.

Sarunas Jasikevicius was not able to reach the level expected of him. After an exciting career, the team fell apart at the key moment of the season. Against the worst possible opponent. “We didn’t play as a team and we had too many nerves. We made some very bad decisions, and I think the coach has a lot of responsibility for that,” said the Lithuanian, taking his share of the blame.

This season’s Madrid has two faces. The embarrassing tangana against Partizan brought to light the difficulty of managing a dressing room full of problematic players. A few hours before the match against Barça, Guerschon Yabusele and Vincent Poirier, two players who were ruled out, left the white team’s concentration and spent the night in a casino in Kaunas. The other side, that of the team that was able to overcome a 0-2 deficit for the first time in history, reappeared during the semi-final. Chus Mateo’s men saw their teeth to eliminate a Barça that thought they were superior.

Barça did not start the semi-final on a good footing. The Blaugrana team, which took time to adapt to the referee’s criteria, needed two and a half minutes to score the first basket against a Real Madrid team that, with the surprising presence of the young Eli Ndiaye in the starting five, built a difference of seven points (3-10). Without an antidote for Edy Tavares, the Catalan team took refuge in external success to recover the vital constants. Àlex Abrines scored the three three-pointers he attempted during a first quarter in which the Cullers made six hits from the 6.75-meter line (15-11). The problem was that Saras’ men closed the first quarter without scoring a single shot (18-18).

Chus Mateo opted for a zonal defense at the start of a second period in which Barça began to turn around. Rokas Jokubaitis boosted the play of a Blaugrana team that began to dominate the script of the match (27-22). The Lithuanian guard, who continued to play with a broken tooth, understood the style of play his side needed. Once he found the balance, the pieces began to fall into place and the culer difference grew to nine points during a phase of the game in which Kyle Kuric found his role (40-31). The nine triples scored, a record in one final four, they were a slab for Madrid. As happened in Belgrade, Barça came to the break with the pan by the handle (42-36).

Aware that the deaths of Deck, Yabusele and Poirier shortened the white bench, Saras opted to extend the Barça rotation. In the third quarter, however, the scene turned in Kaunas. The Blaugrana team conceded a negative partial score of 15-22 in a period in which they lost by seven points (47-54). Losses of the ball and personal fouls became a headache for the Catalan team. Madrid, moreover, knew how to take the game to the mud, where they feel much more comfortable (55-58).

Nikola Mirotic went scoreless in the last period and the semi-final was tied in the last six minutes (58-58). As he did against Partizan, Sergio Rodríguez once again led the game for Real Madrid. His inspiration put Barça on the ropes (61-69). Tavares neutralized all the efforts of a helpless Barça that looked like a small team. The final impotence was humiliating.