Guershon Yabusele, the burly French power forward who received a five-game EuroLeague ban, is as good at judo grappling as he is flexing muscle to save the furniture for a Real Madrid team that flirted with disaster. His 27 points, 7 rebounds, 3 blocks and 2 recoveries (37 PIR) flew the white team to the third game at 1-1. La Penya lacked this time Kyle Guy's triples (only 1 of 5 attempts).
After the surprise on Tuesday, Real Madrid needed an intimidating exit. Hand in hand with a gigantic Yabusele dwarfed Joventut. The seasoned Frenchman marked a brutal start with two free throws, a dunk, a block and a triple that made it 7-0 that marked territory. Joventut was looking to cut back with three-pointers, but Williams-Goss had the maximum lead at 11-2 and forced Carles Duran to ask for time.
The green-and-black reaction did not wait with Joel Parra and his pirate eye with a black eye and patch (from a strong blow in the first game) to reply with a 0-7 and adjust the score to 11-9. However, Yabusele was huge and with 5 more points he rose to 12 and with Hezonja they took the maximum income to an already bleeding 10 (22-12), which Ellenson made up to close the first quarter (22-14).
Joventut was looking for the triple way to cut. Although Kyle Guy missed the second at the start of the second set, Joel Parra picked up the scoring baton from the American to bring La Penya within 5 points (22-17). It was the beginning of a lightning-fast, stratospheric reaction. Madrid recovered the 9th with a successful Hezonja (29-20) and it was the turning point that the green-and-black team needed to get their act together. What overwhelmed Madrid in those 6m50s until the break was a black-green tsunami: a devastating 7-20 run that led them to halftime with a promising 36-40 score. The architects: an Andrés Feliz who scored 13 points in that quarter, with a triple and 5/6 of two, and Joel Parra with another 13 points.
"We are not shooting badly," said Chus Mateo. “We cannot stop defending, we are defending key men like Tomic and Guy well, but others have success”, argued the Madrid coach at the break at the Movistar microphone.
Real Madrid lived off Yabusele (plethoric, with 15 points, 3 rebounds and 2 blocks), but they lost the battle under the basket (17-19 rebounds) and had more losses (10-7), they had defensive gaps (with Parra and Happy) and because of that he couldn't keep his advantage.
Around the changing rooms, the most aggressive and dissuasive Madrid came out. He nailed a 10-2 run in three minutes and tried to gain distance (46-42), but Joventut had high resistance and withstood the onslaught to be stuck on the scoreboard from Guy's first three-pointer (after three misses, at after 25 minutes of play). The success from 6.75 grew between Pep Busquets and Ellenson (2) put a symptomatic 56-59. Undoubtedly, the 9 triples (in 19 attempts) kept the Penya afloat and gave hope of feat. However, the madridistas reacted in the dead time to reply with a 7-0 run that put them 4 up (63-59) to face the last 10 minutes.
The Badalona team needed to reactivate, which in three minutes received an 8-2 and saw itself down 10 (71-61) due to the good performance of Chacho Rodríguez. He missed the points from Parra and Feliz, unprecedented in the third quarter, nailed to 13 points. He had seven minutes to collect himself.
Rudy Fernández's triple that established the 12th (75-63) was the beginning of the end for Joventut, which was sustained until a technique fell on Tomic and elimination. Between Rodríguez, Hezonja and Yabusele they only increased the advantage to a bulky 17 that does not reflect the equality of the first three quarters.
