“Basketball Unites People”, says the sign that the two teams hold in the moments before the start of the game, and 20,091 Serbians shout in the stands, shout during the game, although they end up falling silent in the final stretch, bewildered by a triple from Nigell Williams-Goss and the wonderful performance of Eddy Tavares, the giant who keeps the whites alive in this monumental series of quarters (80-82; the series is 2-1 for Partizan).
Burn the Stark Arena in Belgrade. His parish has decided to win the tie no matter what. No one forgets the passages of the last confrontation in Madrid, that field battle that had been registered at the WiZink Center and that had claimed two white casualties (Yabusele and Deck) and two more from Partizan (Punter and Lessort), in 2-0 lead in the series for the Serbians, and the crowd roars and Madrid shrugs.
The whites rush so much that they add up to four turnovers at the opening of the match, and in three and nothing the score is 12-0 for Partizan and the first quarter closes at 32-19, hell for Madrid!
The Whites have to row against the tide, there is no silence, there is no pause in the Stark Arena.
Remen Tavares and Rudy Fernández, and between the two they begin the resuscitation maneuvers. Rudy Fernández shoots from distance (he signs two three-pointers) and Tavares, from the low post (he adds fourteen points in that quarter), and the distance is cut to an exciting 48-45 at halftime, there is life for the white
The pavilion roars even more, but now the whites are not shrinking. They find Hezonja (five points in one run) and keep Tavares on the court, and in Partizan they lose effectiveness Nunnally, Exum and LeDay, and Madrid projects towards a first advantage (53-54) and then towards 58-63 , and now it’s Obradovic, the legendary Serbian coach, who’s making a splash.
In a dead time, the camera brings the microphone to the Serbian bench, and Obradovic’s screams rise above the general clamor. Obradovic hands out instructions and between his chatter in Serbian he is heard to say:
– Tavares, Tavares!
And there Nunnally and Vukcevic alternate to stop the white giant, but there is no way to stop him.
Tavares continues to add and add, and brings his tally to 26 points and eleven rebounds, and in the final stretch there are four Serbian players pressuring him, and the locals are so stubborn that they neglect the back door and there Nigel Williams-Goss arrives (22 points), author of a decisive three-pointer with 24 seconds left that unbalances the score (77-80) and keeps the Whites on their feet, at least for two more days, the time it will take for Stark to return Arena to play the fourth game of the series.
