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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5 mins read
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.
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.
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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“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.”
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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.”
