{"id":497996,"date":"2026-05-22T23:22:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T21:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=497996"},"modified":"2026-05-22T23:22:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T21:22:58","slug":"sergio-scariolo-nobody-believed-we-would-win-and-play-in-the-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/sergio-scariolo-nobody-believed-we-would-win-and-play-in-the-final\/","title":{"rendered":"Sergio Scariolo: \u201cNobody believed we would win and play in the final\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"1433\" data-end=\"1688\"><strong data-start=\"1433\" data-end=\"1448\">Real Madrid<\/strong> advanced to the EuroLeague final after beating <strong data-start=\"1496\" data-end=\"1522\">Valencia Basket 105-90<\/strong> in the second semifinal of the 2026 Final Four in Athens. After the game, <strong data-start=\"1597\" data-end=\"1616\">Sergio Scariolo<\/strong> praised his players for reaching a stage few believed they could reach.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1690\" data-end=\"1876\">\u201cIt is a huge honor to have reached the final. It is a moment we have to enjoy for a few hours. We deserve a lot of credit, especially after Garuba\u2019s injury,\u201d the Real Madrid coach said.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1878\" data-end=\"2147\">Scariolo also pointed to the team\u2019s improvement after halftime: \u201cIn the second half, we defended better and grabbed more rebounds. I think it is a fair win.\u201d On <strong data-start=\"2039\" data-end=\"2057\">Usman Garuba\u2019s<\/strong> injury, he added: \u201cGaruba\u2019s situation does not look good, but I don\u2019t know anything yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2149\" data-end=\"2390\">Real Madrid will now need to recover before the final against <strong data-start=\"2211\" data-end=\"2225\">Olympiacos<\/strong>: \u201cThe players have to rest. If we have to play without Usman, it is a completely new scenario. Nobody believed we would win and play in the final, and here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Real Madrid advanced to the EuroLeague final after beating Valencia Basket 105-90 in the second semifinal of the 2026 Final Four in Athens<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":497995,"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-497996","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\/05\/sergio-scariolo-1.jpg","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497996","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=497996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497996"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=497996"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=497996"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=497996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}