2014 FIBA Intercontinental Cup

Result

Games

Final context

The 24th edition, played September 26-28, 2014 at HSBC Arena (now Jeunesse Arena) in Rio de Janeiro, matched hosts Flamengo, champion of the FIBA Americas League, against Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv, the reigning EuroLeague champion fresh off eliminating Real Madrid in the 2013-14 EuroLeague final. As in the previous editions, the series was decided on aggregate score across two games rather than a single winner-take-all contest. Maccabi struck first, silencing a Game 1 crowd of roughly 7,000 in Rio with a 69-66 win on September 26, powered by a big fourth quarter and 21 points from American guard Jeremy Pargo. That result left Flamengo needing to erase a three-point deficit, and then some, in the second leg. Two days later, in Game 2, Flamengo delivered in front of a much larger crowd of roughly 14,500, roaring back to win 90-77. The game turned in the fourth quarter, which Flamengo won 26-16; a basket by playmaker Nicolas Laprovittola early in that period put the Brazilians up 66-63 and leveled the two-leg aggregate score for the first time, and Flamengo never trailed again. Laprovittola finished with a game-high 24 points in the clincher and was named the tournament's MVP, with big man Jerome Meyinsse adding 22, as Flamengo won the aggregate series 156-146, a 10-point margin across the two games. Both legs were played at the same Rio venue rather than alternating continents, the arrangement the young relaunched competition typically used in its two-legged years to keep costs and travel manageable for the visiting EuroLeague side. FIBA's own recap described the victory as "the greatest title in Flamengo basketball's history" to that point, and it is easy to see why: Flamengo, one of Brazil's most storied multi-sport clubs, had never previously beaten a EuroLeague champion for a world club title in the sport's modern era, and doing so on home floor against an Israeli club that had just eliminated Real Madrid from the European final carried enormous weight domestically. It also marked the first time since the tournament's 2013 relaunch that the FIBA Americas League representative, rather than the EuroLeague side, won the Cup, breaking Olympiacos's precedent from the inaugural 2013 edition and signaling that South American basketball, boosted by Flamengo's increasingly professionalized roster, could compete with and beat Europe's best. Laprovittola, an Argentine international guard who would go on to a long EuroLeague career of his own with clubs including Baskonia and Real Madrid, was widely credited as the offensive engine of the comeback, particularly in the decisive final period of Game 2.

Sources

• Wikipedia — 2014 FIBA Intercontinental Cup
• List of FIBA Intercontinental Cup finals — Wikipedia