Mega Leks - KK Partizan 73:75 (Adriatic League)

Everything started with the warm-up.

Josh Akognon was watching from the tribune

Dejan Musli came to the start from Mega Leks.

We miss you, Dejan. Not just a bit, but a lot. Damn, it was just awful :(

Mega Leks had a better start (4:0), then it was gone, thanks to Saša Pavlović (7:2) and Dragan Milosavljević. The latter one made a great alley-oop figure at 9:9 assisted by Pavlović. (If I find any video about it, I’ll post it here, it was a great sight.) For the end of the quarter Mačvan sped up, increasing our advantage to 10 points (15:25). The result of the period was 17:25, Adriatic League’s Mickey Mouse, aka Miljenović could have a score left.
The second quarter was about Mačvan.
He unleashed the beast within and washed up the floor with Mega Leks. (17:29)

Was it just me, or did Musli really missed out a lot of chances by intention and tried to avoid Partizan’s paint as much as he could?

We increased our advantage with Marinković’s 3-pointer (18:32), then came a long silence. We missed out a lot of chances. Throws dropped down from the ring or flew out by the backboard. We were out of our best form, to say the least. It was just a crumb of comfort that the opponent team had the same problems. Yet Fortune decided to prefer Mega Leks, they slowly but surely reduced the difference and didn't stop until 27:32.
That was the point when Mačvan got fed up.
The time had come for him.
It was unbelievable what he did. That guy was the Chernobyl reactor himself. Meanwhile Mega Leks got dangerously close to us, the difference was only 3 points (34:37). Mačvan made here such an alley-oop that the ceiling almost fell down (34:39), then Andrić’s free throw could bring the half-time rest (34:41).

Dejan,

You must come back to Partizan. It’s a must. It’s beyond question. It was terrible for us. I’m sure it was the same for you as well. Come back. Or I tear out your ugly beard pile by pile.

The third quarter was still about missed chances. It all started to remind of a basketball-parody from a Z-category comedy. After a long time finally Mega Leks broke the silence (36:41), but the difference got reduced to 3 points again due to the too many missed chances (40:43). Finally Murić put himself into action. First he scored a basket with a bonus shot (40:46), then he wanted to score again. The ball got rebound, a player from the opponent grabbed it, but Murić stole it, ran up and made a dunk. (40:48)

Then it all looked again like a comedy show. We finished the quarter with 46:54, it all looked as if the ball avoided the ring on purpose.

In the last period Mačvan increased the difference back to 10 points (50:60). Then the scoreboard showed 57:62, as we still missed chances. The difference was less and less (61:64), finally Pavlović and Mačvan took the team on their back (63:69). At 67:71 the duo made a fantastic teamwork (67:73), but Mega Leks realized at this point that they might have even won this match. They increased the pace.

An amazing circus started here. The last 5 seconds of the match lasted for 3 minutes. The standing was 72:73. Numerous fouls, timeout on both sides, teams were on the edge of exploding. Andrić scored from free throw (72:75), and there was one for Mega Leks in the last second. But Kešelj’s hand trembled, he missed out one throw, making the end result to 73:75. We won’t put this match on display, but at least we won and that’s the most important.

Highlights:

You can watch the entire match here.

(Photos: Twitter, abaliga.com)