Walter Tavares and Vincent Poirier played big roles for Los Blancos in the semifinal victory
Real relied on its total dominance inside
Article
3 Mins read
Coming into the Final Four, one of the main narratives was whether Olympiacos's quartet of big men could match Real Madrid's twin towers of Walter Tavares and Vincent Poirier.
On Friday night, the Real duo completely dominated on both ends of the floor, setting the foundation for Los Blancos' 87-76 victory.
Real controlled the battle under the rims, making 15-of-19 two-point shots through the first three quarters before finishing 19-for-28 (67.9%), fifth-best accuracy in a single Final Four game this century.
Tavares and Poirier were the main figures, of course, combining to make 7 of 8 attempts around the rim. The lone miss came with 2:10 to go in the fourth quarter and Real up 83-73.
However, it is easy to argue that the two were even more dominant on the defensive end.
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Olympiacos made just 6 two-pointers in the first half and 6 in the second half, on 29 attempts (41.4%). Real also had 7 blocks, including 3 by Tavares.
"Playing versus Tavares and Poirier, we should be more ready mentally to understand what exactly we need to do", Olympiacos coach Georgios Bartzokas said after the loss. "We were hesitating a little bit, and this is not the right approach."
His centers combined to score 7 points, but what might have been even more impressive when it comes to the defense by Tavares and Poirier is that Olympiacos's foursome of Nikola Milutinov, Moustapha Fall, Filip Petrusev and Moses Wright combined for just 2 two-point attempts!
"I am probably responsible our centers could not help us as much as we wanted", Bartzokas said.
It is hard to decide what was more impressive, the low numbers that Real's defense allowed or the number of shots that Olympiacos did not even take.
That defensive success really made Tavares happy.
"We did a great job", the Real center said. "We knew it was going to be tough for us to play against them. We knew they are big, they are strong, they are great on the offensive rebounds."
The offensive rebounds in the second half were probably the only segment where Tavares & co. had some trouble. The Reds caught 11 offensive boards in the second half, and 14 for the night, thanks to the great energy in trying to rally from a 25-point deficit.
But that's something Coach Chus Mateo and his players will have two days to think about and plan to improve as they get ready for their third championship game in the past three years.
