Río Breogán-Real Madrid: the semifinal of the EncestaRías tournament, today live on Realmadrid TV
Scariolo's team will play their fourth friendly of the pre-season (9:15 PM CEST).
Real Madrid face Río Breogán tonight in the semi-finals of the EncestaRías Tournament (9:15 pm CEST; Realmadrid TV), which will be played today and tomorrow in Pontevedra. The Whites have won all three games they have played this preseason and go into the penultimate test before playing the Endesa Super Cup on Saturday, 27 September.
Scariolo coached his first game against Casademont Zaragoza. Since then, his team has been undefeated, and go into tonight's game after wins against Alba Berlin (90-65), Unicaja (92-89), and the team from Maó (94-64). The objective remains to accelerate the pace of competition and integrate the Italian coach's game concepts. And that is becoming more evident every day, as is the depth of the squad. In Segovia, Maledon and Krämer made their debut; Okeke and Almansa did so before. They could be followed in this tournament by Procida and Lyles, who have travelled to Galicia.
Baskonia and Valencia Basket will play the other semi-final. In the event of reaching the final, the game will be played on Sunday at 8:30 pm CEST.
The opposition
Río Breogán will be a tough opponent. The hosts have won four of their five warm-up games and are more experienced. Last season, they finished in mid-table, and this season they will try to improve their position to concentrate on the playoffs. Under Luis Casimiro, their squad has been renewed with six new signings. The biggest names are shooting guard Francis Alonso, Russell (top scorer in the German league in 2022-23), and centre Brankovic, formerly of Bayern Munich.