The 2018 EuroLeague Final Four was the concluding

EuroLeague Final Four The EuroLeague Final Four is the final four format championship of the European-wide top-tier level EuroLeague professional club basketball competition. The Euroleague Basketball Company used the final four format for the first time in 2002, f ...

tournament of the 2017–18 EuroLeague season, the 61st season of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

's premier club

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

tournament, and the 18th season since it was organised by Euroleague Basketball. It was the 31st Final Four of the modern EuroLeague Final Four era (

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Bicenten ...

–present), and the 33rd time overall that the competition had concluded with a final four format. The Final Four was played at the

Štark Arena The Štark Arena ( sr-cyrl, Штарк арена), also known as Belgrade Arena ( sr-cyrl, Београдска арена), is a multi-purpose indoor arena located in Belgrade, Serbia. It is designed as a universal hall for sports, cultural even ...

in Belgrade, Serbia, on 18 and 20 May 2018.

Venue

On 26 October 2016 Euroleague Basketball announced that the Final Four would be held in the

in Belgrade. It is designed as a universal hall for sports, cultural events and other programs. It was the first time the EuroLeague Final Four was hosted in Belgrade, or in the country of Serbia. The Arena's total floor area is 48,000 square metres. For sports, it has a regular

seating capacity Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that ...

for fans of 18,386, and also has 70 luxury boxes, which include a total of 860 seats. The arena's cost was estimated at

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists ...

70 million. Štark Arena is a member of the European Arenas Association (EAA).

Background

CSKA Moscow

CSKA Moscow finished the regular season as the number one seed, after having a 24–6 record. In the quarter-finals, the team played another Russian side in

Khimki Khimki ( rus, Химки, p=ˈxʲimkʲɪ) is a city in Moscow Oblast, Russia, 18.25 kilometres northwest of central Moscow, and immediately beyond the Moscow city boundary. History Origins and formation Khimki was initially a railway station th ...

. CSKA won the series 3–1 over Khimki, after a controversial 88–89 win in Game 4.The controversial finale of Khimki – CSKA
/ref> In the United League season, CSKA was in second place while battling for the first seed.

Fenerbahçe Doğuş

Fenerbahçe finished second in the regular season and defeated Kirolbet Baskonia in the quarter-finals. Fenerbahçe reached the Final Four for a fourth straight year. Head coach

Željko Obradović Želimir "Željko" Obradović ( sr-cyr, Желимир "Жељко" Обрадовић, ; born 9 March 1960) is a Serbian professional basketball coach and former player who is currently the head coach for Partizan of the ABA League, the Basketba ...

had the opportunity to win his tenth EuroLeague title, a record for most titles by a coach.

Real Madrid

Madrid battled injuries during the regular season, as

Sergio Llull Sergio Llull Melià (; born 15 November 1987) is a Spanish professional basketball player and the team captain for Real Madrid of the Spanish Liga ACB and the EuroLeague. He is a tall point guard and shooting guard. Llull is a two−time A ...

Ognjen Kuzmić Ognjen Kuzmić ( sr-cyrl, Огњен Кузмић, ; born May 16, 1990) is a Serbian professional basketball player for Crvena zvezda of the Adriatic League and the EuroLeague. He also represented the senior Serbian national basketball team int ...

and Rudy Fernández missed most of the games. As a five-seed, the team beat Panathinaikos in a controversial quarterfinal series, 1–3. The star player for Madrid during the season was

Luka Dončić Luka Dončić ( ; ; born February 28, 1999) is a Slovenian professional basketball player for the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He also represents the Slovenian national team. Born in Ljubljana, Dončić shone ...

, who led the league in

Performance Index Rating Performance Index Rating (PIR) is a basketball mathematical statistical formula that is used by the Euroleague Basketball Company's first and second tier competitions, the EuroLeague and the EuroCup, as well as various European national dom ...

(PIR), and was later a top-three pick in the 2018 NBA draft. Dončić's games during the Final Four were televised in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, by

NBA TV NBA TV is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Basketball Association (NBA) and operated by Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit. Dedicated to basketball, the network features exhibition, regula ...

. In the

2017–18 ACB season The 2017–18 ACB season, also known as Liga Endesa for sponsorship reasons, was the 35th season of the Spanish basketball league. It started on 29 September 2017 with the first round of the regular season and ended on 19 June 2018 with the final ...

, Real Madrid was the number one seed.

Žalgiris

In the regular season, Žalgiris qualified as the sixth seed. Žalgiris won the series over favored

Olympiacos Olympiacós Sýndesmos Filáthlon Peiraiós ( el, Ολυμπιακός Σύνδεσμος Φιλάθλων Πειραιώς, Olympic Club of Fans of Piraeus) is a major multi-sport club based in Piraeus, Greece. Olympiacos is parent to a number ...

, 3–1. For EuroLeague Legend

Šarūnas Jasikevičius Šarūnas "Šaras" Jasikevičius (; born 5 March 1976) is a Lithuanian professional basketball coach and former player. He currently serves as a head coach for FC Barcelona of the Liga ACB and the EuroLeague. During his playing career, standing ...

, this was his first visit to the Final Four as a head coach and also for the club since 1999. In its domestic LKL season, the club dominated as well, as it was in a secure first seed.

Bracket

Semifinals

Semifinal A

Russian champions

CSKA Moscow CSKA Moscow (russian: ЦСКА Москва) is a Russian sports club based in Moscow. It was created in 1911 in the Russian Empire on base of OLLS (Skiing Society, founded 1901). Later, during the Soviet era, it was a central piece of the big So ...

returned to the Final Four to make it their seventh consecutive semi-final appearance. CSKA guard

Sergio Rodríguez Sergio Rodríguez Gómez (; born 12 June 1986) is a Spanish professional basketball player for Real Madrid of the Spanish Liga ACB and the EuroLeague. Standing at , he plays at the point guard position. Rodriguez, nicknamed "El Chacho", won ...

would play the semi-final against his former club, which he won the EuroLeague title with in 2015, as well as the

EuroLeague MVP The EuroLeague MVP, or EuroLeague Full Season MVP, is the award bestowed to the player that is deemed to be the "Most Valuable Player" during the full season of the EuroLeague. The EuroLeague is the top-tier level European-wide men's prof ...

award in

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

. Real Madrid would play its fourth Final Four in five years. The match would be a re-match of the 2017 third-place game. During the

regular season In an organized sports league, a typical season is the portion of one year in which regulated games of the sport are in session: for example, in Major League Baseball the season lasts approximately from the last week of March to the last week of ...

, both teams won their respective games at home, with this game being considered a Real Madrid home game.

Semifinal B

Defending champions Fenerbahçe Doğuş returned to the Final Four to make it their third straight appearance. Led by head coach

, the all-time record holder for most EuroLeague championships won by a head coach, it defeated Kirolbet Baskonia 1–3 in the quarter-finals, to clinch a semi-final spot. Žalgiris Kaunas qualified for its first Final Four in 20 years, as the last time the team participated was in

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...

, where it claimed the championship as well. The club beat

3–1 in the play-offs, despite not having home court advantage.

Third place game

Championship game

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:2018 Euroleague Final Four

Final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: * Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of con ...

EuroLeague Finals International sports competitions in Belgrade International basketball competitions hosted by Serbia 2018 in Serbian sport 2010s in Belgrade

Basketball in Belgrade