By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
No surprises in Madrid tonight as Real finished the job against Bayern Munich in round 33 of the Turkish Airlines Euroleague. The Spanish side secured a victory with a third-quarter push that was enough for 79-67.
Mario Hezonja paced the winners with 20 points on 5-of-10 three-point shooting. Dzana Musa added 11 points and Sergio Rodriguez dished 5 assists. Andreas Obst tied his career-high with 7 three-pointers en route to a game-high 21 points in 17 minutes for Bayern and Zylan Cheatham added 20 points and 8 rebounds in defeat.
“We entered the game a little bit sleepy. We played also a little bit sloppy. They are a great offensive rebounding team. They shoot a lot of threes so we were off to a slow start. But then later we woke up, we started to play tougher defense, we were sharing the ball offensively and we just separated“, Hezonja said.
Real Madrid now has 23 wins just like Olympiacos who lost tonight in Belgrade against Crvena Zvezda, the last round of the regular season can decide the top seed before the playoffs. As for Bayern, they are out of playoff contention.
After a solid first half by Bayern that held on being only down fore in halftime (40-36), Real Madrid took control in the third quarter and sealed the deal. Mario Hezonja starter hitting long ranged shots, while the team defense took care of the rest. The German side scored only eight points in the third quarter and was down 56-44 going into the last period. The game was over after that.
“We were able to play much better defense in the second half. We were able to make some blocks and we boxed out much better, they started to miss some threes that in the beginning were a problem for us. And it was not probably the best game that we had, but we won and it’s very important for us to be among the top three [teams]“, Real Madrid head coach Chus Mateo added.
Photo Credit: EuroleagueBasketball.net