Their home court at the Palacio de los Deportes, where they are unbeaten, will be the location for the new Top 16 game. Real Madrid will be playing against Brose Baskets, a team that hasn’t won even a single game in this phase. For their part, Laso’s men, who lead their group with an excellent 7-1 standing, aspire to rack up their eighth victory, getting even closer to placing in the first two positions for the playoff. This is the second of five games that the Madrid squad will play at home in this second round. The Real Madrid coach won’t be able to play Pocius. For their part, the German team is arriving with two new players, Massey and Walsh, who make them more dangerous.
One side aspires to take all, while the other, win or lose, has nothing to lose. Real Madrid and Brose Baskets, at opposite ends of the classification standings, one in first place and the other in last place, will play the ninth game of the Top 16 in the Palacio de los Deportes, Laso's team's turf, where they are undefeated. Real Madrid will be seeking, as always, a victory, which in this case would be very valuable for getting into the playoff. Their 7-1 standing and the fact that they will play four of the remaining six games of the second round at home make it seem all the more likely that they may be able to win one of the first two positions in the group. The German team, 0-8, has few possibilities, not to say none, of doing anything. However, Alba Berlin, the other German team in this Top 16, didn’t have much to lose either, and they made life rough on Laso's players at home last week.
| PRE-GAME STATISTICS |
| Team | Position | GP | GW | GL | PF | PA | Diff. |
| Real Madrid | 1º | 8 | 7 | 1 | 599 | 546 | +53 |
| Brose Baskets | 8º | 8 | 0 | 8 | 596 | 665 | -69 |
They tread warily and, above all, with absolute concentration, for the clash with a team that both Laso and Rudy Fernández define as “competitive" and “good scorers.” And the fact is the German team has added on two good offensive players, Massey and Walsh. However, the last-minute arrival of the newcomers to the German team may turn out to be a handicap, since they are not yet fully integrated into the team's dynamics, and their coach, Chris Fleming, recognized as much, while he also lauded the quality of Laso’s team: “Real Madrid is, without a doubt, one of the best, if not the best European team right now. So obviously, it’s hard to play on their court. I think that, for us, we’re still trying to be a team and integrate some new guys. It will be a new test where we will try to improve on last week’s performance, when we didn’t play our best basketball. We’re hoping to count on that, and we’re looking forward to the game in Madrid. We’re going to try to keep the classification open as long as we can.”
The German team is arriving at the Palace with these intentions to put up a fight, where they will have to measure up against the arsenal deployed by Pablo Laso. Without Pocius, who suffered a stress fracture in the distal epiphysis of his right ankle, but now with Draper on hand, the Real Madrid coach aspires to field his best game starting from minute one, in order to not have any last-minute scares. In the first-leg match in Germany they achieved a resounding victory (67-82) with Mirotic playing splendidly, making 19 points, with 8 rebounds, in only 22 minutes. It is precisely Mirotic who will have to pay the closest attention to Fleming’s most dangerous player, Nachbar, whose statistics show 16.7 points per game in this Top 16.
For their part, the inside players for Real Madrid will have to deal with Zirbes, Ogilvy, or Ford, who has grown exponentially in recent games, and they will have to fight for every ball under the hoop to maintain their European competition leadership position for rebounds, where they have an average of 37 rebounds per game. However, given the white squad’s characteristics and the good game their point guards and outside players have been having, one of the most interesting battles will be for dominating the pace of the game and the game played by the two Sergios, who have been blessed in this part of the season, or by Rudy and Carroll, who are holding up very good statistics in the European competition.
Laso is aware that a win would make things even easier on his team in terms of classifying for the playoffs. However, the coach advises prudence, since Alba Berlin already put them in hot water. “Every day I repeat that it’s a complicated matter playing against Europe’s best. Alba, which is out of the group, made things hard on us, and with Brose it’s going to be a bit similar. They have traded players; they have put in some guys with scoring ability. Also, the arrival of Massey and Walsh lets them have a better offensive ability.”
| STATS |
| TEAM | PF | PA | REB | AS | BLO | REC | STL |
| Real Madrid | 79,5 | 71,3 | 37,0 | 15,7 | 3,4 | 6,7 | 11,4 |
| Brose Baskets | 74,2 | 81,7 | 31,6 | 13,3 | 2,5 | 4,6 | 13,7 |
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