http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2014/05/19/jubilant-israel-celebrates-maccabi-tel-aviv-unlikely-european-basketball-title/
(Note that that link is not Fox Sports but Fox News, so no game report--not even a final score! But apparently the Euroleague Final was watched by 1/3 of all Israelis, including bigwigs like Netanyahu and Peres. Interesting)
I watched the 2nd half and OT of this game, it was good stuff. Tyrese Rice was the PG for Maccabi that made all the plays down the stretch. Maccabi looked like an all-American squad: tatted up African American kids that looked more like Morningside Heights than the Golan Heights. I love the international game, I love that people all over the world wanna play this game that I wanna watch.
Though Maccabi has performed well over the years in this League (I believe this is their 9th title), it was Real Madrid that was the obvious favorite. They featured Rudy Fernandez, one of those guys that NBA-ers expect to become a star, and Nikola Mirotic, who I think will be wearing a Chicago Bull uni next year (and I believe they expect him to start). Mirotic impressed me but Fernandez came up short too much from outside.
It was a good game, very similar to high level NBA-style offensive sets, good athleticism, good refs, coaches that prowled the sideline looking busy (they looked more like soccer coaches than basketball coaches to me), it had all the familiar features of high level ball. I also watched a bit of the runner-up game: Barcelona dueled CSK Moscow for about 3.5 quarters and then ran away with the game behind their star, Joey Dorsey (you may remember him from Memphis's loss to Kansas in the 2006 NCAA). Good stuff, man, I hope I remember to catch this again next year (thank you, ESPN3).
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