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It’s 22:35 local time after the Euroleague title game; the Real Madrid fans are in the streets, beers in hand, celebrating. For the first time in twenty years, the main European club basketball prize is nestling in the Spanish capital.

Yet tucked away within the confines of the press conference room inside the Barclaycard Center, Real Madrid coach Pablo Laso is smiling, but not in a celebratory mood. He’s thinking ahead and aiming for domestic glory.

“Do I feel satisfied? No,” he says. “I am happy. I’m calm. But if we lose the game on Wednesday I will be very mad. That’s the way I am.”

They return to Liga Endesa action as they travel to Laboral Kutxa on Wednesday night, so the players will celebrate as much as their body allows them to now, because it won’t be long before they get back to work again.

But, Laso will be smiling from ear-to-ear over one thing after the title game: how his players handled Olympiacos’ key component, Vassilis Spanoulis.

The clutch guard scored 11 of his 13 points including a game changing three-pointer against CSKA Moscow on Friday, and on Saturday lunchtime, Laso stated that he “can stop Spanoulis”.

And he was right.

Spanoulis was the victim of multiple defensive assignments in the championship game. When he had the ball, Jaycee Carroll guarded him. Two plays later, Sergio Rodriguez took the reigns, then it was KC Rivers’ turn – all with different styles of defence – but all with one purpose: to annoy Spanoulis.

And boy, did it work.

The Olympiacos guard only managed five shots, he made just one of them, which was a floater off the glass in the second quarter.

I asked Laso in the post-game press conference what his strategy was? Knowing what the main defensive plays were, but if there was any other details that he could shed some light on.

But Laso, with a cheeky grin, remained tight-lipped, even after the game had ended.

“I’m not going to open the great magic potion on stopping Spanoulis because he [had] three points [tonight],” Laso said.

“I think my guys did a great job of focusing on not letting him get into a rhythm offensively. We used different strategies and different players, that way he couldn’t get used to anyone. Let’s say if he is defended by Llull all day he’s very smart in knowing how to attack so we used different players.

“Jaycee started with him, Llull had him for some moments, Rudy and then KC Five players on him plus he plays the pick and roll so some of our big guys have to come out and get him.”

The plan worked well, everyone that marked Spanoulis did so with great confidence and determination.

“We knew that he would be coach’s main target but one guy doesn’t make a team,” Real Madrid’s KC Rivers said. “We knew though that Spanoulis would be our focus and I’m speaking about me, Sergio [Llull], Rudy, Jaycee and Sergio.”

On this night, they all did their part. Basketball is a team game and throughout the weekend, Real Madrid showed everyone that quality.