What happened last week?

Dear basketball lovers welcome to the first edition of our weekly section “What happened last week”, a retrospective of what happened in the week of May 21-27 in the world of basketball.
Denver became the first team to qualify for the NBA finals, Boston is one step away from writing history, it’s one game away from winning the other conference final with Miami from 3-0. The Euroleague appointed its new queen, based on the idea of who doesn’t have old people to buy, Real won the final with Olympiakos; in the match for 3rd place, Barcelona proved that it is not enough to buy valuable players even for a third place, losing with Monaco. In the country that dominated Europe this year, the quarterfinals have begun with Barcelona, Baskonia, Real Madrid and Tenerife having the home-field advantage, but Joventut and Unicaja produced the surprises. Napoleon’s country has designated its semifinalists, Monaco – Bourg and Boulogne – Lyon, if we cross the border to the south we find other interesting semifinals Milano-Sassari and Virtus Bologna-Tortona, in both countries the Euroleague teams are still in the competition. We remain in the same area of Europe and we find the first Euroleague team eliminated from the quarters, Alba Berlin; instead Bonn seems steadfast on its way to a huge surprise, Bonn-Ludwingsburg and Bayern-Ulm are the semifinals with clear favorites.
We will now move to an area where every child is born with the knowledge of basketball and with a ball in their arms, Crvena Zvezda is already in the ABA League final after defeating Buducnost, Partizan must eliminate Cedevita in the semifinals to have an incendiary final. In the homeland of Luka, Cedevita and Helios Domzale had no problems in the semifinals with Sencur and Krka. In the land of money, the hosts Turk, Pinar, Fenerbahce and Anadolu won the first match of the quarterfinals; in Greece, Olympiakos is 2-0 with Paok and surprisingly Panathinaikos is 2-2 with Peristeri in the other semifinal. There is not much room for surprises in Israel, Maccabi Tel Aviv-Hapoel Holon is the first semifinal, while Hapoel Tel-Aviv is still waiting for its opponent. Zalgiris Kaunas-Rytas reached the final again, the only champions from Lithuania respected their title this season as well.
And others, I will review the fact that in the Czech Republic, the final is played without Nymburg, Decin and Opava are the surprises of this edition, Leiden-Groningen is tied 2-2 in the final in the Netherlands, the same score being in Hungary between Szombathely and Alba Fehervar. Belgium appointed its new champion, Oostende after a final with Antwerp Giants, in Romania U-BT Cluj Napoca returned to the final with Oradea from 2-0 winning 4-2; in Estonia Kalev/Cramo had no problem winning the final against Tartu Ulikool. Sporting managed to win 3-0 in the semifinal against Porto, having a much harder task in the final against Benfica. Levice and Komarno are tied 3-3 in the final in Slovakia, Split and Zadar reached the final in Croatia by eliminating Cedevita and Cibona and in Austria Swans Gmunden leads 2-1 in the final with Vienna.
I am waiting for any advice from you to improve this section.
Valentin Petruta
Photo: Malaga Hoy