The day that Sergio Llull became, along with Felipe Reyes, the player who has worn the Real Madrid shirt the most times (1,046), the news from the Buesa Arena was that Baskonia, one of the most powerful teams in the Liga Endesa, after an irregular first round in which they ended up paying for a bad start to the season, was left out of the Copa del Rey, a blow for the Vitorian team, a regular in these events. Baxi Manresa was waiting, having to expect a Baskonista defeat by more than one point. The final score (85-99) leaves no doubt; the development of the party, neither.
Sergio Llull played 15 minutes in Vitoria. He took the court with less than two seconds left in the first quarter and remained on the court for eight minutes; In the second half he put on his tracksuit jacket and sat on the bench next to his teammates. He appeared again in the fourth quarter. To complete his participation. He attempted three three-pointers and scored one, also his only two-point attempt. He gave an assist and had three turnovers. But what was important was not Buesa's minutes, nor his scoring, nor the rating, nor the rest of the statistics of a specific match like the one between Real Madrid and Baskonia, but what his presence in the vitorian pavilion.
Because those minutes equal Felipe Reyes as the player who has worn the most games in white in the already very long history of Real Madrid. There are already 1,046 games in 18 seasons between 2006 and 2024. He has 23 titles in an unforgettable career dressed in white; 23,086 minutes of total play and 10,659 points, in addition to an action that went down in Real Madrid history, his basket with three seconds left in Kaunas, which gave his team the eleventh European Cup against Olimpiakos.
In a transcendental match for Baskonia, which hung the “no tickets” sign, which modernities turn into “sold out”, for Ivanovic's team, the crash became a metaphor for what the first half of the season has been like in the ACB: a catastrophic start forced them to try to come back later, but neither in the overall campaign nor in The forty minutes of the game were enough for him to redeem himself.
By the time the Vitorians wanted to find out that the game had started, Yabusele had already scored three triples that knocked out Baskonia. That initial 0-9 was a slab, which became heavier, because the lack of scoring success of the Vitorians was joined by Madrid's finesse in shooting. With 2.35m left in the first quarter, the scoreboard indicated a devastating 6-24, which they had to fight for the rest of the game. He tried everything, but Madrid wouldn't let him. Musa scored 20 points, half as many as against Efes, although with much fewer minutes, and was a hammer; like Yabusele or Campazzo (20). Moneke's spark was not, this time, enough to overcome his team's bad start. Real limited themselves to doing their job professionally, as if they had not played four overtimes two days before, and frustrated Vitoria's last hope of getting into the Copa del Rey. In Manresa they celebrate it.
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