In a slightly emptier than normal Movistar Arena, surely due to a certain soccer match being played at the Bernabeu a couple hours earlier, Real Madrid Basketball set a league record 34 straight matches unbeaten at home in Liga ACB, defeating Manresa by a score of 87-75.
Los Blancos were led tonight by a strong outing from center Walter Tavares. Madrid head coach Sergio Scariolo stated that Tavares and the rest of the team had to pick up the slack of missing players on the team, and Tavares did just that recording a double double of 16 points, 14 rebounds, and 5 blocks in 20 minutes of play time. Tavares did most of his damage from the free throw line this game, going 10/10 from the charity stripe.
Alongside Tavares, Trey Lyles and Usman Garuba had solid matches with both scoring 12 points. Garuba especially had a very efficient scoring night, scoring 12 points in 12 minutes, including a strong fastbreak dunk off of his own steal. Garuba showed out on his 200th appearance in a Madrid jersey, finishing one rebound short of a double double himself.
During the press conference, Scariolo was happy with the win but very critical of his team’s turnovers, with Real Madrid committing 22 turnovers overall. “We had turnovers in the first half and didn’t improve in the second,” stated Scariolo. “We could have opened up a big lead much earlier if we had limited the turnovers. But we’ll improve.” However, Scariolo was still happy with his team’s performance, especially in light of the departure of Bruno Fernando. The Angolan center was released by Real Madrid and has gone on to sign for Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade, and has left Scariolo’s team short handed at the center position for the time being.
Manresa performed valiantly during the game, but could not keep up with the performances of Real Madrid’s stars. Manresa were led by Grant Golden, who led all players with 18 points in 19 minutes, battling well down low with Walter Tavares. He was supported by Alex Reyes with 13 points.
Manresa was let down on the night by two major factors: its three point shooting and inability to draw fouls at the same rate as Madrid. Manresa shot 22% from the beyond the arc as a team on the night, an abysmal clip that helped stymied any chance of a comeback during the game. In the free throw department, Manresa had a huge discrepancy in free throw attempts compared to Real Madrid, with Manresa only attempting 14 free throws compared to Madrid’s 31 attempts. These two factors coupled together led to the outcome we watched at the Movistar Arena.
Despite the final score, Manresa was never out of the game until the very end. The most important sequence of the game for Madrid came during the second quarter. With 5:28 left in the second quarter, Scariolo called timeout after Manresa went on a 9-3 run to cut the Madrid lead to 1 point. Manresa had been finding success with Walter Tavares on the bench, but Scariolo saw that and inserted the big Cape Verdean back into the game off the stoppage. After Tavares’ reintroduction, Madrid went on a 11-5 run to end the half and built a lead that they would never relinquish.
For Real Madrid, they improve to 3-1 in Liga ACB play and for its next match will travel to Munich for a EuroLeague clash with Bayern Munich. For Baxi Manresa, they fall to 1-3 in Liga ACB play and will travel to Istanbul for its next match against Bahçeşehir Koleji S.K. in the EuroCup.