Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade sent shockwaves around Europe after winning the opening two road games of its Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Playoffs series against Real Madrid. That puts the Serbian side in a commanding position to reach the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Final Four for the first time since 2010.
Enjoying the cushion of a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series means that Partizan, the 1992 EuroLeague champion, needs just one more win to knock 10-time winner Real out of Europe’s premier club competition and qualify for the May 19-21 showpiece event in Kaunas.
Few pundits would have expected Partizan, which had never beaten Real in Madrid before, to force the royalty of European basketball into submission twice in the space of just two days, but that’s exactly what the visitors did in the most emphatic fashion.
Having clawed out an 87-89 victory from the jaws of defeat in Game 1, when Kevin Punter sank a game-winning three-pointer with 0.4 seconds left on the clock, Partizan then vanquished the hosts 80-95 in Game 2 which unfortunately had a sour and premature ending.
After a mass on-court altercation among rival players with 1:40 seconds left in the game, the officials were forced to call it a night after video reviews of the incident showed both rosters had fully participated in the chaos. The resulting ejections left neither with the mandatory two players available to carry on.
Partizan will be particularly concerned with the condition of its top Game
2 performer Dante Exum. According to reports in the Serbian media, the Australian guard suffered a torn tendon in a toe in the fracas. He left WiZink Center on crutches.
Exum led Partizan’s effort in Game 2 with 19 points, James Nunnally scored 16, Zach LeDay had 15 and Punter netted 14. Mathias Lessort chipped in with 10 points and 9 rebounds, with those stats underlining just how balanced Partizan’s roster is in all departments.