• Narration: So we live the game
  • Classification: This is the Euroleague

The sequence was repeated until satiety: wrong throwing of the Baskonia, defensive rebound of the Maccabi, triple in the counterattack and sepulchral silence in the Buesa Arena. The result was a beating as unexpected as incontestable. 113 points scored the Sfairopoulos team, 30 more than a Baskonia overwhelmed by the superiority of its rival, with no possible answer to even compete. Neither the 31 points of Shengelia , nor the 24 of Garino , the two Baskonists who were saved from the general disaster, served to deal with an opponent who got everything he tried. [Narration and statistics: 83-113]

17 triples converted the Maccabi, with a success of 58% that reached 70% during the third quarter. A collective storm in which Wilbekin excelled, author of six in eight attempts for a total of 20 points, and also joined by Di Bartolomeo, Bryant, Dorsey, Wolters and Acy . Nothing I can do to counteract the worst Baskonia of the season, very thick in attack and with unforgivable defensive gaps in the Euroleague.

In Buesa, the two teams that had the least points in the Euroleague had crossed their faces, which foreshadowed a low score and rather slow pace. The reality, however, was very different from the first quarter. The Maccabi, despite the loss of Casspi , its internal reference player, began with impudence, without considering, forcing Baskonia to match its intensity level to maintain equality on the scoreboard. What Perasovic did not imagine was that his last favorable score of the game was going to be 5-4.

Although he is far from being the best team in Europe in triples, the Maccabi found in the 6.75 line the trench from which to defeat his enemy, first with Wilbekin and then with Di Bartolomeo, who placed the distance above of the 10 points for the first time in the match in the final leg of the opening fourth. Five triples of seven attempts were an excessive slab for a Baskonia in which Shengelia was the only one who seemed to live up to what the Maccabi demanded from the Catalans.

An almost perfect third quarter

The second quarter, far from mitigating the problem, aggravated it severely. Baskonia looked on that stretch as a team of the pile, lacking fluency in attack, careless with the ball and tremendously lower in the rebound. The Maccabi took advantage of his rival's shortcomings to crush him mercilessly, either from the outside with Wilbekin, or under the hoop with Hunter . The Israeli advantage was growing from basket to basket until reaching a maximum of 25 points before the honk that sent players to the locker room (32-55).

What Baskonia couldn't even imagine was that the torment had just begun. What happened in the third quarter touched the unlikely, made you want to stop the game and ask if it was a hidden camera joke. In the third quarter, the Maccabi put it absolutely everything, the easy, the difficult and even the impossible. It did not matter that Garino (12 points in those 10 minutes) and Shengelia (10) strongly grabbed the flag of the rebellion. The Maccabi even managed to expand its margin, reaching an outrageous 32-point maximum advantage, with the Buesa listening to the first whistles of the night.

Perasovic, far from giving rest to his most important men thinking about the future, put them on the court in the last quarter to try to minimize damage, so that the result was not as bulky as it had been until then. But not even this Thursday Baskonia, who ended up losing the game by a difference of 30 points, adding his fifth defeat in eight games in this Euroleague.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • sports
  • basketball
  • Euroleague

Euroleague Hengelia and Fall catapult the Baskonia

Euroleague Milan of Chacho maniata al Baskonia

Euroleague 2019 - 2020 A record Higgins for Barça's triumphant work in Kaunas