{"id":489007,"date":"2026-03-20T21:27:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T20:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=489007"},"modified":"2026-03-20T21:27:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T20:27:17","slug":"francisco-seals-the-thriller-as-zalgiris-shocks-real-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/francisco-seals-the-thriller-as-zalgiris-shocks-real-madrid\/","title":{"rendered":"Francisco seals the thriller as Zalgiris shocks Real Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"1906\" data-end=\"2239\"><strong data-start=\"1920\" data-end=\"2097\">It ends 87-85 for Zalgiris Kaunas against Real Madrid, with Sylvain Francisco leading the hosts with 20 points and 5 assists and Mario Hezonja topping Madrid with 18 points.<\/strong> The home side lands a huge result in a game that stays tight throughout and is decided only by Francisco\u2019s free throws with 3.9 seconds left.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2241\" data-end=\"2591\">The opening stretch is played at a high pace, with Chuma Okeke scoring 8 points in the first three minutes and Hezonja answering to push Real to a 29-25 lead after the first quarter. Zalgiris answers through a burst from Francisco, stays in touch through multiple lead changes and trails only 55-53 at halftime after back-to-back Sergio Llull threes.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2593\" data-end=\"3049\">The defenses take over after the break and Real appears in control, leading 72-68 at the end of the third quarter. But the closing minutes belong to Zalgiris, which also gets 16 points from Moses Wright and a near double-double from Azoulas Tubelis, while Nigel Williams-Goss posts 11 points and 10 assists. Madrid gets 18 from Hezonja and a double-double from Walter Tavares, but its five-game winning streak comes to an end as Zalgiris improves to 18-14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zalgiris Kaunas edges Real Madrid 87-85 and gives a major boost to its EuroLeague playoff hopes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":489006,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[199],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-489007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-euroleague"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2026\/03\/HD4SBOaWIAE6ykF.jpg","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489007"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=489007"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=489007"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=489007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}