Split - Zadar

Croatia - Premijer Liga, Playoffs, Final

Split has been waiting 20 years for the title in the Croatian League. They were hoping this would be their year, but judging by what happened on Sunday, they could be waiting a while longer. They lost the first game by 85:76, so they don’t have home field advantage in this series anymore. The bigger problem than the loss is that Split can't play much better than this. Top four players (Shannon Shorter, Lewis Sullivan, Dominik Mavra and Tyrell Nelson) had solid shooting percentages, but it wasn't enough. Head coach Srdjan Subotic will have to change the rotation a bit. No player spent more than 28 minutes on the court, which is not usual for such important matches.

Unlike his colleague, Danijel Jusup (Zadar head coach) didn’t spare his best players. ABA League MVP Luka Bozic played all 40 minutes, while Karlo Zganec, Marko Ramljak and Dario Dreznjak played over 30 minutes. Zadar is the only Croatian team that played in the ABA League quarterfinals this season, and that is no accident. They left a better impression than Split, both during the season and at the beginning of this final. The only problem was that they had five consecutive defeats against this opponent, but not once final score was convincing. Every time, Split would triumph in a close ending. Now, luck could turn the other way.

If we look at the statistics from the first game, we will see that the teams were equal in almost all important categories. It’s not a surprise that Split shot poorly for three points because in the ABA league they were the worst team in that segment with only 29.3% of successful attempts outside the 6.75m line. Zadar has a much more potential in offense and we should expect better shots from distance. The visitors won the first final game, and the impression is that they have more room for improvement throughout this series than Split. On paper, it is realistic that every game will be 50/50 and surely several matches will be decided in the last seconds. In any case, we should not expect any convincing victory for the hosts on Thursday evening.