ESP – Splitter, Huertas excel as Caja Laboral draw first blood against Madrid

VITORIA (ACB) - Tiago Splitter had 14 points and nine rebounds and fellow Brazil international Marcelo Huertas scored 12 and dished out four assists as Caja Laboral beat Real Madrid on Friday.

The 62-60 victory came in the opening game of an ACB semi-final tie featuring several players that will compete at the FIBA World Championship.

One of them, Serbia's Novica Velickovic, had 14 points.

He scored to give Madrid their biggest advantage at 36-26 early in the second half.

A Splitter bucket began the Caja comeback, cutting the gap to 36-28.

His two free-throws midway through the third quarter put the home team on top at 39-38.

Velickovic and Spain international Felipe Reyes each had four points in an 8-2 run for Madrid that left them with a 46-41 lead.

Caja refused to lose.

They eventually went in front for good after a Brad Oleson shot made it 58-56.

Madrid did make things interesting at the end with Lithuania international Darjus Lavrinovic scoring to close the gap to 61-60 in the last minute.

Caja Laboral’s Fernando San Emeterio then had the ball stolen by Louis Bullock but the Madrid sharpshooter missed a potential game-winning three-ball in the waning seconds.

Emeterio added a free-throw for the final score.

Reyes had 15 points and Croatia center Ante Tomic 10.

Tomic fouled out of the game and his coach, Ettore Messina, wasn’t happy about it.

"We suffered from certain decisions made by the officiating crew regarding Tomic,” Messina said.

“They treated him like a child, but we'll learn from that and grow stronger…

Caja Laboral’s Canada international Carl English missed his third straight play-off game while he recovers from a broken rib while Madrid were without their best player this season because of injury, Spain international Sergio Llull.

Messina added: "Good teams react with some anger after losing. We will play with great intensity in Game 2, just like we did today."

FIBA