By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
Jaycee Carroll scored the game-winning 3-pointer with less than three seconds remaining in his EuroLeague season debut as Real Madrid beat Maccabi Tel Aviv 86 – 85 in a competition classic that took place in Spain.
“I’m very excited I got this one in. The play came out perfectly,” Carroll said in his post-game flash interview for EuroLeague TV. “I’m excited to get back to basketball and do whatever I can to help our team. The American veteran guard finished with 14 points and 4/7 triples while Jordan Mickey notched a game-high 30 PIR after posting 16 points and grabbing 11 rebounds for the winning side.
Scottie Wilbekin, Maccabi‘s top contributor with a game-high 22 points plus four assists, had dropped the go-ahead bucket for Maccabi with a difficult jump shot in front of Mickey. Quincy Acy was the one to take the attempt to win the match for the “Yellows” but his own jumper didn’t go in.
“Wilbekin got a two, Jaycee had a three,” Pablo Laso said when asked about what made the difference for his team down the stretch. Anthony Randolph scored 11 points and Facu Campazzo contributed 10 points plus four assists to Real.
John DiBartolomeo and Elijah Bryant added 15 points apiece for Maccabi.
Wilbekin pleased to see improvement despite the loss.
While Scottie Wilbekin saw Maccabi losing the battle in a kinda heartbreaking manner, he believes that his team can build on this performance for the games that come. “I don’t like to be happy after wins, but it’s positive looking forward because last week in Khimki we weren’t ready to play, we were a step behind on defense and offense. We improved this week and once again, it’s hard to be happy about it because we had that game won, we were one defensive stop away. Moving forward, there are a lot of positive things we can take from this game, we played good team defense and stuck to the game plan, that’s how you win games, tighten it up a bit.”