By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
The key match is approaching, the moment when it will be known whether Partizan Mozzart Bet or Real Madrid will go to the Final Four in Kaunas.
Decisive Game 5 of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague playoff series is scheduled for Wednesday (10/05) at 9 p.m. CET, and Zeljko Obradovic insists not much has changed.
“The mood is not too different compared to the previous time when we were preparing for Madrid,” Zeljko Obradovic said and recalled that his team won twice so far in the capital of Spain.
The Black and whites won the first game with a three-pointer from Kevin Punter in the dying moments and then dominated the second game, which was interrupted by a fight. That incident influenced the further course of the series, as Real won twice in Belgrade and returned the series to Madrid.
“It’s the fifth game, there is no sixth, so I guess that’s probably the problem… Someone will go to the Final Four. A lot happened in this series and the next game will be decisive. We go with the desire to do our best and, of course, we learned our lessons in these two games in Belgrade, and talked in training to fix what went wrong. First of all, we have to set up a defense on Tavares, not to allow them to counterattack and to have a better flow in offense in response to their zone defense,” Obradovic added.
Kevin Punter is returning after serving a two-game suspension for involvement in a fight at the end of Game 2.
“He is the captain and leader of the team and his presence will be very important.”
Partizan will go against history in Madrid since guests never won the fifth game in the playoff series of the EuroLeague.
“There’s also that fact, that teams who led with 2-0 never got eliminated, but the statistics exist so that some things would change. We will see on Wednesday after the game what happened. Look how we lost the last game. One possesion, a rebound, and the defense can decide. These are all factors that can be crucial in a basketball game, and you should be ready for everything and react to the flow of the game,” Obradovic concluded.