By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
VITORIA-GASTEIZ– With less than two minutes into the second half of Friday’s (17/5) EuroLeague semifinal between CSKA Moscow and Real Madrid, Will Clyburn delivered what was probably the day’s top highlight overall.
Cory Higgins faked an attempt beyond the arc and then sent the ball to Clyburn who was coming off the weak side. The latter threw down the hammer, a powerful poster slam on EuroLeague “Defensive Player of the Year”, 2.21 tall Edy Tavares.
“At that time, it hurt pretty bad,” Clyburn admitted to Eurohoops. “So I didn’t really feel good about it.”
“Now that I’ve seen the highlight, I feel very good about myself.”
It wasn’t the only memorable play that Clyburn had in the match. The American All-EuroLeague First Team forward drained the triple to put his team at a one-point distance, 79 – 80, with four minutes left to play. CSKA had returned from 14 points down in the mid of the third period.
Clyburn finished with 19 points (3/4 3-pointers) and five rebounds to help CSKA return to the Final for the first time since 2016.
“Everybody kept faith. Everybody kept believing. We believed in ourselves and to what the coach was telling us. Everybody was making plays,” Clyburn said.
“It was good to get the win today. Especially coming back from being down all those points. Fighting back and keeping faith. It was great,” Clyburn had previously commented on his team’s win.
Clyburn’s quotes echoed, in a way, what CSKA coach Dimitris Itoudis said in the post-game presser. “We were smaller in size but bigger at heart.”
Erasing a 14-point deficit in 10 minutes against the EuroLeague defending champion en rout to a comeback win, definitely shows a certain kind of mental toughness.
“No one will ever say again that we are soft,” CSKA center Othello Hunter was thinking out loud next to Clyburn.
“Not to my knowledge. I don’t know anything about that,” Clyburn said.