Real Madrid join Olympiakos in the final

Real Madrid won, like last year, the “clasico” against FC Barcelona (78-66) in the semi-finals of the Euroleague basketball, Friday in Kaunas (Lithuania), to join Olympiacos in the final thanks to a monumental match from his pivot Walter Tavares.

Holder of the record for titles in the competition, he will seek an eleventh continental crown on Sunday, against the Greek winners of Monaco (76-62), a year after losing in the final against Efes Istanbul.

If the latter made the difference in the first semi-final in the third quarter, the “Merengue” broke away in the last five minutes (62-60 with 5 min 30 sec from the end).

Thanks on the one hand to their veteran Sergio Rodriguez (36 years old, 12 pts), who knocked out the Catalans for the first time with a winning shot after 24 seconds of possession (67-60), before delivering a luminous decisive p behind the defense for Tavares (69-61 three minutes from the end).

The Cape Verdean tower (2.21 m) was the other great architect, and even the main one, of the success of the people of Madrid, deprived inside Guerschon Yabusele (suspended), Vincent Poirier, as well as the Argentinian Gabriel Deck (wounded).

Tavares (20 pts, 15 rebounds and 4 blocks) put the lid on the end of the game, on the rebound and by three blocks including a monumental one on the Czech Jan Vesely, before the Croatian Mario Hezonja (14 pts) sealed the victory from a three-point shot 35 seconds from the buzzer (76-66).

Barça watered him from long distance in the second period (4/21, 0/7 over the whole match for Nikola Mirotic) and his coach Sarunas Jasikevecius, who played in his hometown, will have to wait at least another year before get his first Euroleague on the bench.