Thursday, April 18, 2013

Baseball / Euroleague / Real Madrid sweeps Maccabi away - Haaretz

Maccabi Tel Aviv bowed from the Euroleague Top 16 with an unhealthy performance at Nokia Arena last week that ended in a triumph for Real Madrid, which qualifies for the Ultimate Four. Ahead of the game Maccabi superstars of yesteryear Aulcie Perry and Earl Williams were paraded facing the audience, but which could not erase the prospect of a 3-0 whitewash after. No group has ever return from 2-0 down in a Euroleague Top 16 series. Maccabi opened with Shawn David, Devin Jones, Bob Hickman, Nik Caner-Medley and Yogev Ohayon against True Madridas Rudy Fernandez, Carlos Suarez, Nikola Mirotic, Mirza Begic and Sergio Llull. The initial quarter was a scrappy affair, with more mistakes than creative baseball. Both groups started hesitantly, and five minutes into the game the score was still only 3-5. With Maccabi a' and particularly Ohayon a' guilty of lacking relatively easy bins, Real gradually extended its result in 11-5, while the relaxing addition of Guy Pnini plus several mistakes by Real players helped the hosts to keep the score at 10-16 by the end of the fraction. Maccabi instructor David Blatt launched Moran Roth at the break however the teams continued to deal baskets, and unforced errors, letting Real to keep the lead despite its disjointed safety. Halfway in to the quarter Maccabi was showing more sparkle in crime, with Caner-Medleyas distribution in the centre of virtually every transfer, but its defensive work allow the team down. As Real missed scoring chance after scoring chance the gap was slowly narrowed by the hosts until Yogev Ohayon landed a superb basket to level the rating at 30-30 as the Nokia Arena market finally awoke from its sleep and told the team on. But with James and Caner-Medley lacking holders they need to have obtained Maccabi failed to just take advantage of its qualitative advantage at that time and trailed 30-33 at the break. It was the very first quarter Maccabi had gained in not quite three games against Real Madrid. Llull reopened the cases by landing his third three-pointer of four attempts as Real slowed the speed even more and tried to simply take advantage of its height advantage, but again some disjointed driving play offered Maccabi scoring possibilities that have been only partly utilized as the hosts leveled the score at 38-38. Midway through the quarter Yogev Ohayon broke through Realas moribund safety to give Maccabi the lead for the only and first time in the game, but Real fired back with a sublime three-pointer from Llull that started a run as Maccabi seemed to run out of ideas. James and hickman were both guilty of relinquishing property as the visitors strode to 52-44 at the end of the 3rd period. Since the closing quarter ran down Maccabi slipped further behind and just ran out of steam as Rodriguez, in particular, cut through the home safety very nearly at will. Realas inspiring leader Felipe Reyes was chances are running the game. Nokia Arena started to clear as negative Maccabi fans filed out a long time before the final buzzer. It absolutely was an unfortunate method to stop the plan. Blatt seemed sanguine following the game. aItas no discomfort to lose to Real Madrid. They're a much better team than us, and we simply didnat have sufficient against them,a he explained. Asked if the team roster will soon be rested through the summer, Blatt managed his players, but hinted that the team needs defining. aIam pleased with what we did [in Europe] this year. We shall need to look at the team. There have been a lot of missed shots and we didnat put enough points on the table. We have and will continue steadily to speak about this issue."

Link: [Live -] Online - TV] Metalurg Zaporozje - Krivbass Krivoj Rog - Ukrainian Premier League

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