By Antonis Stroggylakis / info@eurohoops.net
There must be something about Real Madrid guard Fabien Causeur and Belgrade.
Back in the EuroLeague championship game of 2018 vs. Fenerbahce Beko in the Serbian capital, Causeur scored a team-high 17 points to help Real Madrid lift the “Decima.” In Thursday’s (19/5) semifinal and right at the same place against Barcelona, he dropped 14 out of his 18 points in the second half as his team got a comeback win to advance in the Final vs. Anadolu Efes.
“I don’t know man… Can we talk about this after the Final if I really play good? Because I’m very superstitious,” Causeur told Eurohoops. I insisted, asking him if he’s cooking a similar performance for this year’s championship game.
“I’m just going to try,” Causeur said. “I’m playing with Madrid for a reason. You have to show why you deserve to wear this jersey. And I just give it all in these games. I just don’t want to go home and feel like I regret something. Some days I can play good, some days I can play bad. Miss shots or make shots. At the end of the day, this is all about mentality.”
It’s about leaving it all on the floor,” he added. “When you always do this, good things happen.”
Real Madrid fell behind 47 – 34 in the third period but made an outstanding comeback to close the quarter with a 0-10 run and a 56 – 60 lead behind a bucket by Causeur.
The French veteran made a key sequence of plays on both ends down the stretch when he drained the triple for the 75 – 78 and then stole the ball and scored in transition to put Real up by five with two minutes to play.
“I think that halftime came at the right moment,” Causeur said. “We were losing our rhythm, losing our game plan. Giving up easy baskets. And I feel that with the talk of the locker room we took some deep breaths. We didn’t start well in the first two minutes of the third quarter but then we started to play better on defense. We were able to run a little bit and that gave us confidence. It’s all about leaving it all on the floor. You can’t come back without energy from the locker room.”
Before this game, Barcelona was the boss in the battles between the two Spanish powerhouses this season. The Blaugrana had won in the regular season games of both the EuroLeague and the Spanish ACB League and had prevailed in the Copa del Rey Final for a 5-0 streak.
While every Clasico is unique, most predictions called for the script of this EuroLeague semifinal to have a similar finale with Barcelona celebrating another victory over Real.
“The question was on them obviously,” Causeur said. “They [Barcelona] were beating us during the whole season. We beat them just in the Supercup. Basically, they played better than us during the season. But when the right time comes you have to show up. And I feel that the whole team gave an amazing effort and amazing character. We showed a lot of mental strength and I can’t be prouder than that.”