The giant from Maio was named the MVP of the ACB League final, giving Real Madrid its 36th title in the national competition
Edy Tavares decanted the final of the ACB League in favor of Real Madrid. 25 points, 13 rebounds, 7 fouls received and a PIR of 41 These are numbers that had not been seen since the days of Pau Gasol in a decisive game for the title. The Cape Verdean dominated at will a Barcelona that had no resources to stop its 221 centimeters in height in the paint making him the Finals MVP.
Tavares is the eighth Real Madrid player to win this award after Sabonis (1993 and 1994), Alberto Angulo (2000), Bullock (2005), Felipe Reyes (2007 and 2013), Llull (2015 and 2016), Rudy Fernández (2018) and Campazzo (2019). The center joins a select club that automatically makes him a legend of a Real Madrid team that was not at all a favorite for the title and won it on May 19, when they beat Barça in the Euroleague semifinals.
The Catalans resembled a disjointed team in this series final. The players seem to have lost faith in the message from coach Sarunas Jasikevicius, who is touched and almost sunk after this season finale. “In my opinion, in the end it was a failure. Not because we didn’t give it our all, but because we are Barça. We are expected to win titles. It is not enough to achieve one or simply that we are there. We have come down in the last two months”, Mirotic admitted about the defeat.
The truth is that the level of the star culé has been far from being decisive for his team with a final match in which he achieved 14 points and 3 rebounds. Mirotic has completed a discreet final in terms of averages considering that he is the highest paid player in Europe several body lengths above the second. The Hispanic-Montenegrin has finished with averages of 15.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and a PIR of 17.
Real Madrid once again based everything on a suffocating defense and a devastating inside game he grabbed a whopping 16 offensive rebounds. These numbers explain that, despite the poor white shooting percentages, they always got second and third chances to score. Pablo Laso, who has won by playing an offensive game, on the counterattack and with triples, adds a new record to his record with a less showy type of victory, but very effective and industrial.
The crowning of Tavares as the most valuable player tells us that Real Madrid has a treasure in the figure of its 30-year-old center. Few players, if not any in the Old Continent, can stop a player who has been able to squeeze every last breath to get the title. Real Madrid wins the ACB again three years after its last title Y Paul Laso increases a list of winners that already has 22 white titles.