Real Madrid beat Olympiacos 93-89 on Saturday night in Abu Dhabi and became the first holders of the EuroLeague SuperCup. The MVP of the tournament was Walter Tavares. In the final he scored six points.
Four clubs, three games, a trophy with no history. It should have been an exhibition. It wasn't.
Olympiacos 92, Fenerbahce 90
Fenerbahce led 78-69 going into the last quarter. Olympiacos won that quarter 23-12.
Nine points down with ten minutes left, against a team that is hard to play and does not panic. What turned it was the defence. Fenerbahce turned the ball over eight times in that fourth quarter alone, and Olympiacos kept coming back at them until Evan Fournier hit the jumper that decided it with 52 seconds left. He finished with 19. Donta Hall was named MVP of the game with 12 points and 12 rebounds.
Olympiacos have been doing this for two seasons now. It is September, and they are still doing it.
Real Madrid 98, Dubai Basketball 95, after overtime
Dubai managed to lead this game by 16 at some point. They are the newest club in the competition and they spent the night proving they belong in it. Elie Okobo scored 24. Dubai were the better team for long stretches, and with 25 seconds left in regulation they were still in front, until Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot tied it with an off-balance three.
Then overtime, where Madrid scored the first eight points and the game was over. Tavares and Luwawu-Cabarrot had 20 each.
This is the oldest thing in European basketball. One team is more experienced and knows exactly what to do in the last four minutes of a close game, and the other one learns it the hard way. Dubai lost and still made the loudest statement of the weekend.
Real Madrid 93, Olympiacos 89
A rematch of last season's championship game, four months later, with different rosters and the same two teams.
Madrid led by nine after the first quarter and stayed in front for more than 31 minutes. They won it on the glass. Their rebounding margin was +14, and they shot 63% on two-pointers against 42% for Olympiacos. Thirty-one assists to 24. Sasha Vezenkov scored 22, Fournier had a three to make it close at the end, and Andres Feliz finished it with a layup.
Real was physical, organised, and in control of the boring parts of the game. Not a preseason performance.
Earlier that day Fenerbahce beat Dubai 85-77 for third place, with Talen Horton-Tucker scoring 23.
The MVP scored six points
Tavares was given the trophy for the tournament after a final in which he took almost no shots. Six points, seven rebounds. In the semi-final he had 20.
If that sounds strange, it is the same thing PIR sees and a scoring table doesn't. Rebounds, blocks, the rim closed for 25 minutes. The number counts all of it, and so, this time, did the people voting.
What it was worth
The truth? Nothing too important. Yes, it's a new trophy, the first title of the season but nobody will remember it in November if the things go badly.
The four teams played anyway. Real Madrid came back from 16 down and took the boards in a final. Olympiacos defended a quarter in September like it was May. Dubai and Fenerbahce made both winners work for every possession.
Round 1 is on Thursday. These four already know where they stand.
