Barça 83-86 RM Basket (May 19, 2022)

Stark Arena, you already knew us, but we repeat: this is Real Madrid.

It's never a good idea to give Pablo Laso's Real Madrid up for dead, but this year we almost lost faith entirely. I speak in general about Real Madrid fans. When this website was born, we came from a 0-4 at the Camp Nou and in basketball we spent a month counting defeats. We did not lose faith.

Because we already said that... What if...? Well, yeah, here we are. And abusing the self-quote today I can't help but remember the importance of dynamics in this beautiful sport. https://twitter.com/EuroLeague/status/1527365993470697472

Defense, success and caste lead us to the fight for a new title. We started very well, partial 2-8 with Yabusele intimidating and scoring, showing that this time he did not want them to say that he did not show his face against Barcelona. We overcame the bad news of NWG's injury with aggressive, bloody play.

We began there to glimpse that our enemies were old acquaintances: Mirotic (he would sign tremendous numbers) and Laprovittola (who with that mustache and his success at times of the match made us remember the summer market)

Mirotic fell into a net of RM players on the final play 19-19, the first null combat.

We went into the second quarter with the same good energy, making it 20-25 after a good 3-pointer from Rudy. We would never score another one. The percentage outside the break was worrying.

Even at 23-27 we had up to five consecutive failures to increase the distance. That's where the punishment came: Brandon Davies hurt us, Lapro had one of his streaks, Deck was throwing and losing stones instead of balls. They put 10 up, we did not score 3 to correct, our faith was put to the test again (45-34) https://twitter.com/DAZN_ES/status/1527385160982745088

I introduce a spoiler there: we would be reborn. Abalde came out plugged in, we began to cut back. But Mirotic appeared to us every time, again and again, today he reminds me the rage with which Luis Enrique played us in football, wanting to show us in each play that we did not love him enough, that he was the good one, that he should be adored, not Llull, not that Rudy, of course never that boy named Doncic. Yes, Nikola, you're great. That's why you're on the priceless team, the team no one will be able to pay for.

But he wasn't the only one who wanted to play in the final. Because Causeur wanted, Yabusele wanted. Our whole team wanted.

We play several bestial defenses: robbery, concentration. Even Llull appeared with a mandarina to put our first advantage in many minutes (56-58)

56-60, start of quarter. Two more points after 90 seconds. 61-68 with 6 minutes remaining. We didn't want to be optimistic, but... what if? https://twitter.com/DAZN_ES/status/1527388908572397573

66-73 with a three-pointer from Yabuseleeeeeeeee (like that, with many e)

We still suffer, as usual, as itshould be. Lapro put them to 3 and Mirotic nailed the 75-75, by then already with 26 points.

But I repeat a phrase because the situation was repeated: Causeur also wants this title. And he was cunning, and he was clever. And he put a +5 that would be strategic and definitive. After a minute of various heart problems, we left the thing 79-82 (Llull). 16 seconds and Abrines puts in, but it's 2. Foul, Hanga, who was with cold hands. But Hanga plugs in. We are winning, we are winning and there are 5 seconds left, Llull will shoot. He fails and Yabusele appears to take the ball. Niko looks for his miraculous basket but that one already got into the other semifinal. < p style="text-align: justify;">We are finalists. https://twitter.com/RMBaloncesto/status/1527393722245300228 The final will not be repeated. We will avenge you.