By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
If you expected to watch a thrilling game reminiscent of the first Final between Barcelona and Real Madrid… well, you were mistaken. But if you were a fan for Real, you were in for a treat, since the Madridistas absolutely dominated Barcelona 90 – 70 on the road to make the 1-1 in the series.
The final score that was written in the boxscore as the final buzzer sounded, portrays quite accurately the difference between the two teams. Real Madrid‘s presence on the floor was better, and more confident, with Laso’s players being nearly unstoppable sometimes. On the other side, Barcelona was lackluster on both ends of court and never manage to find a steady offensive rhythm.
Ultimately it was a 1-12 partial score for the 59 – 78 in the beginning of the fourth quarter that gave extra wings to Laso’s players and simultaneously doomed the hosts.
With three minutes to go, Sergio Rodriguez sank the three-pointer for the 65-86 and, with it, all hopes of Barcelona to come back in the match.
By scoring 19 points (behind a perfect 9/9 field goal shooting) and grabbing 6 rebounds, Gustavo Ayon gave a clinic, while Sergio Llull added 20 points, 13 of them in the first quarter.
It was with he who fired up Real Madrid’s engines that rammed “Palau Blaugrana”, making it 2-11 and then 11-28, nine minutes into the match Even though the Catalans responded with a 11-0 run in the second period, their opponents pushed them back enough to close the first half with the score 32-44.
Barcelona came closer but failed to consistently make a strong effort down the stretch. Meanwhile the “Whites” found one solution after the other in order to not only win the game but do it quite emphatically against their arch-rivals.