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Real exploded out of the gate with the highest-scoring first quarter in a final this century, leading 36-25 after 10 minutes. **The previous high** had been 31 points by Maccabi Tel Aviv in the opening frame of the 2004 title game.

Furthermore, the 61 points combined in Sunday's first quarter was a Final Four record in general, eclipsing the 53 scored between[ Montepaschi Siena and CSKA Moscow in their 2003 third-place game](https://incrowdsports.com/).

By halftime, when Real led 54-49, more records had fallen. It was the highest-scoring first half of a final this century, also tying for the most points in any Final Four first half over that span. And it was the third-most points in any half at the Final Four.

After being on the receiving end of that opening blitz, it was obvious that defense would be the focus in the Panathinaikos locker room at halftime, and the Greens duly came out to put the clamps on the previously rampant Real offense to record-breaking effect.

In the process of moving into a 61-64 lead after three quarters, Panathinaikos held Real to just 7 points. That was tied for the fewest points ever in any championship game quarter this century, alongside Olympiacos against CSKA in 2012, and was also Real's lowest-scoring quarter all season long.

And finally, Panathinaikos then put the seal on a thrilling 80-95 victory by scoring 31 points in the last 10 minutes, the fourth-highest fourth-quarter scoring in a final and the most in more than a decade.

Victorious coach Ergin Ataman insisted his players never started to panic despite their troubled opening, saying: “We didn't start well, we gave them 36 points in the first quarter, and maybe everybody was starting to think it would be a boring final.

“But we never thought like this, not in the timeouts nor in the locker room. We always talked about improving our defense, improving our aggressiveness.

Coach - Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens

The game came back to us when we held them to 7 points in the third quarter, and in the last quarter we played perfect basketball.

Juancho Hernangomez echoed those views, claiming his team still felt confident after allowing those 54 first-half points, stating: “They had been making all their shots, but we knew that wouldn’t continue throughout the whole game and we stayed on the same path defensively.

“At halftime, Coach Ataman just told us that we were doing fine, to apply more pressure and keep competing. We just had to be physical, all five players boxing out. All five players on the court had to stay focused and I think we did a great job. Every player is needed to win, not every player is going to score 30 points. We just had to do our jobs.”

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***&lt;Who will be crowned EuroLeague Champion? 🏆 🏀&gt;***

“From day one, Coach told us our goal was to get to the Final Four and to win the championship, and we got it done. \[The Final Four\] was two games to call yourselves champions of EuroLeague, so whatever we had to do, whatever energy we had to get, we were going to do that.”

No player experienced more of an individual turnaround than Kendrick Nunn, who was unable to contribute much during the early exchanges after committing three first-quarter fouls but returned with a bang after the break to finish with 21 points.

"I was too aggressive with my hands,” he admitted. “I've been in that position before and just had to stay composed, believing in my teammates and sticking together.”

Real coach Chus Mateo, meanwhile, believed his team fell into the trap of getting away from their game plan during their second-half collapse. “We probably thought the easy path was to play only on the perimeter,” he said.

"But what we want to do first is gain advantage in the paint, to penetrate, get into the low post, set picks that give you an advantage, and in that sense, we lost a certain amount of aggressiveness. But this is basketball and sometimes things don’t go the way you want.”

From record highs to record lows on a roller-coaster ride, the first-ever championship game between Real Madrid and Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens was well worth the wait. Andy West reviews the highs and the lows of the championship game.

Final Four records tumbled in a tale of two halves

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\[LT\] With a heavy heart, Euroleague Basketball joins the world basketball family in mourning Dusan "Duda" Ivkovic, the two-time EuroLeague champion and dean of the coaching profession, who died in his hometown of Belgrade, Serbia, on Thursday, six weeks before his 78th birthday.

After following his late older brother Slobodan into coaching at age 25 in 1968, Mr. Ivkovic served at the head of benches around Europe in different five decades from 1978 to 2017. He coached at 12 pro clubs in his native Serbia, Croatia, Greece, Russia and Turkey, as well as leading the Yugoslav and Serbian national teams in three different decades. His impact on the sport and his status among his fellow coaches was such that he served as president of the World Association of Basketball Coaches in the mid-2000s.

"We at Euroleague Basketball are beyond sad to know that a close friend and a true giant of our sport, Duda Ivkovic, has left us too soon," Jordi Bertomeu, Euroleague Basketball CEO, said. "It is no exaggeration to say that Duda impacted European basketball as much as any coach ever, growing up in one of the cradles of the sport, Belgrade, and taking many teams to the heights of success. Even more than his accomplishments, however, Duda will be remembered as a true leader to his thousands of players and to generations of coaches. Basketball has lost one of its pioneers, but Coach Ivkovic's legacy lives on in a thriving European game that he helped lift to where it is today."

Mr. Ivkovic, a relative of the world-renowned inventor Nikola Tesla, grew up on the same street in the Belgrade neighborhood of Crveni Krst as the open basketball courts belonging to Radnicki, the club where he would coach youth categories from 1968 to 1978, when he moved across town to Partizan, with whom he won the Yugoslav League and Cup, as well as the FIBA Korac Cup, in his first season at the head of a bench.

Mr. Ivkovic alternated between Serbia and Greece for the next decades, then started winning titles in bunches with four Greek teams in between 1990 and 2001. His first Greek League title came with PAOK in 1992 and his first EuroLeague crown with Olympiacos in 1997, when he won the national league and cup, as well, for a triple crown. He then added a FIBA Saporta Cup title in 2000 with AEK Athens.

In 2002, Mr. Ivkovic moved to Russia and led CSKA Moscow into three consecutive EuroLeague Final Fours while winning the national title each of those seasons. He moved next to Dynamo Moscow, with whom he won the 2006 EuroCup, making him the only coach ever to collect four different European competition trophies. But he was far from done.

Younger generations will remember Mr. Ivkovic as the mastermind behind one of the most unlikely EuroLeague titles ever won, when he guided Olympiacos to an upset of his old team, CSKA, in the 2012 championship game despite trailing by 19 points with 11 minutes left to play. He took a break from coaching after that but came back to lead Anadolu Efes Istanbul for two seasons before retiring officially in 2017. He was honored soon after as the first and still-only coach to be named an official Euroleague Basketball Legend.

In addition to his long list of championship victories as a club coach, Mr. Ivkovic had another one as head coach of Yugoslav and Serbian national teams, starting with a silver medal at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. Yugoslavia went on to win FIBA EuroBasket gold medals in 1989 and 1992 with Mr. Ivkovic on the bench, while in between his team climbed to the top of the sport globally by winning the 1990 FIBA World Cup in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He would add another EuroBasket title with FR Yugoslavia in 1995.

Rest in peace, Duda.

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Final Four records tumbled in a tale of two halves

Final Four records tumbled in a tale of two halves

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[LT] Euroleague Basketball mourns Dusan Ivkovic