Again Grave Diggers were not allowed to the match. (Only a very few fans could sneak in to Pionir Hall, but ultras were banned.)
Empty seats of Grave Diggers - it all looked very sad and desert
(photo: Twitter)
Warming-up
(photos: Twitter)
Saša Pavlović was still struggling with his injury. He watched the game outside the court with Petar Aranitović and Ioannis Kouzeloglou
(photo: Facebook/KK Partizan)
National anthem
(photo: Facebook/KK Partizan)
The match started with a slow pace as if both teams would be sleepy. After almost 3 minutes the standing was still 5:2, then Mačvan equalized. At defense Partizan was playing the "zone tactics", while the opponent used the "4 defenders hang onto one attacker and pull him while he tears apart"-solution. Referees made it clear in the beginning that they don’t really like Partizan again
just the usual "Partizan player gives a nasty look to the Zvezda-player = foul + free throw, Zvezda player pushes Partizan player to the ground under the backboard = offensive foul"
but we kept the pace in the first part. Everything was relatively fine until 14:14, then... then God knows what happened. Zvezda sped up and made a 10-point series (24:14), while on our side nothing ever worked out. Mačvan threw one basket, even that one was from free throw, but the end of the quarter still held the 10-point difference (26:16).
In the second part the Dallo-Mačvan axis put themselves into action, but no matter how excellent and spectacular tricks they made and how many baskets they scored, the opponent was still leading to 38:26. The pace was still relatively slow, but either Jenkins or the overdosed gorilla looking Zirbes destroyed our defense line. Then Andrić got fed up and scored two 3-pointers (40:32). Mačvan added his part as well (40:35), our drawback was only 5 points then.
But they were still leading.
Marinković also scored a 3-pointer (41:38), it started to looking better, even hopeful.
But then Zvezda gained 5 points from 2 baskets, while we could score only from free throws. The half-time result was 47:39.
In the third quarter referees thought, their time had finally come.
They whistled personal fouls one after the other to Partizan-players. Murić, Andrić and Milutinov immediately gained 4 personal fouls each. The Dallo-Mačvan duo was still working overtime, thanks to them we made it to 49:45. Bezbradica reduced the difference to two points (54:52).
But God damn it, we were still behind them. No matter how much Dallo and Maki were ploughing up the court of Pionir Hall, something still didn’t work. Red team was leading to 62:54. Mačvan scored from free throw (62:56), then Mitrović, may he put his ankle out before a very important date, threw the ball to the ring from half-court just moments before the end buzz. 67:56. Wonderful. (NOT) Let’s go ahead, to the last quarter.
The last quarter started with Tepić’s 4th personal foul (!!!).
Then... it all seemed as if we made a mistake always in the last moment. We always approached Zvezda to 2-3 points, we were always about to equalize, or even take the lead, but something always happened. The opponent took a ruthless advantage of it and increased the difference. After a while there were again 10 points between the two teams (72:62).
I swear they were not better than us.
Just they had 3 extra players, the 3 referees.
82:64. Don’t ask me how, because even I don’t know. Partizan was struggling, but they kept on fighting, they did not give it up. It was still so hard that Average Fan could wait only for the end buzz, praying for the difference not to reach 20 points. Because 30 seconds before the end there were almost 20 points between them and us (91:72).
The end result was 92:76. We can do only one thing: forget this match as quickly as possible and focus on the upcoming one.
Update: highlights
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