By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
In a very tense and dramatic Game 5 (both inside and outside the court) that finished after three and a half hours, Crvena Zvezda beat archrival Partizan Belgrade 80 – 77 to win ABA League Finals and claim the championship title for a third straight year.
By winning the championship, Zvezda all but secured its participation in next season’s EuroLeague while it’s highly likely that Partizan will also return to the competition after 2014 via a wild card.
The game was disrupted in the second half due to missiles and various objects being hurled on the floor by fans. The referees initially asked for a spectator stand to be emptied and then ruled that the match won’t resume unless the arena will be evacuated, something that happened after an interruption of almost one hour.
As Partizan coach Zeljko Obradovic said after the game: “First of all, congratulations to Zvezda on winning the title in the circumstances under which basketball was played and the game ended. Are we talking about basketball? Should we talk about basketball in the conditions in which we played? How do the players feel if they play four such games instead of one? It was the same a few days ago. Does this make any sense? Congratulations to Zvezda, absolutely, nothing else. The question for all the people who live in this area and play in the ABA league is whether this will ever stop”.
The score was 39 – 39 when the game began once again and it remained a close battle with multiple lead changes until the very last moments. With Partizan up 72 – 73 and 2:40 to play, Nikola Kalinic hit a 3-pointer, and then Nate Wolters added as well to put Red Star ahead 78 – 75.
Dejan Davidovac drained a pair of free throws for the 80 – 76 with 12 seconds to play. After Aleksa Avramovic went 1-2 from the line, Partizan got two chances to tie the score but Zach LeDay and Kevin Punter missed from beyond the arc.
Davidovac scored 15 points while Wolters posted 12 points plus seven assists and Kalinic had 11 points plus six rebounds. Punter dropped 27 points.
Red Star forward Ognjen Dobric was named MVP of the Finals.
Chicago Bulls center Nikola Vucevic was present in the game.
Zvezda’s coach Dejan Radonjic (in the photo with Vucevic) added after the game: “The game was good, we were a little better and won another trophy. I am very aware that there will be controversy about everything that happened, especially in tonight’s contest. I’m not someone who likes to comment on things like this, so I will continue in the same manner.”