The Spanish basketball classic, as usual, is supposed to be the “best show in town” – but tonight (Sunday), it became a nightmare for Real Madrid: the Blancos snatched a humiliating 73:88 from Barcelona in the Spanish “King” Cup final and lost a first title of the season.
The Catalans’ show started from the opening. Real may have been the first to hit and climbed to an early lead, but Barcelona’s 5:16 run turned the bowl over. The trend continued in the second quarter and Barça’s lead grew and reached 21 points at the break, with Real “stuck” on only 2 points in the last 4 minutes of the quarter.
Although Real made up for the difference in the second half, and even showed signs of a comeback for episodes, but failed to make a real comeback to the game and the difference remained double-digit until the end. Corey Higgins led the Barcelona scoring with 20, Nikola Mirotic added 12. On the other side, 17 by Walter Tavares and 15 by Alberto Albada were not enough.
In the Italian “King” Cup, just before the match against Maccabi Tel Aviv on Thursday, Milan beat Pesaro and won the title thanks to a crushing 59:87. Milan started slowly, and increased in the second quarter which ended in 6:27. Gigi Datuma Led the scenes of Ettore Messina with 15 points in 16 minutes, Kevin Punter and Zack Lydie added 13 each.
M7LANO! 🏆🇮🇹#insieme pic.twitter.com/YWaUzEL54P
– Olimpia Milano (@ OlimpiaMI1936) February 14, 2021