101 Greats of European Basketball

Vladimir Stankovic
burg and Partizani Tirana of Albania), Banco di Roma
qualified for the final group with six teams. The first
two would play the title game. FC Barcelona and Rome
finished with 7-3 records and they would face each other
for the title, on March 29, 1984. In the group stage,
Barcelona had beaten Roma at home by 81-74 with 31
points by Juan Antonio San Epifanio, but in Rome, the
Italian team won by 74-71 with Wright scoring 18. The
tiebreaker would be the final with the title of European
champion going to the winner.
Barça started the game way better, and in minute 16
was winning by 13 points, 35-22. At halftime, there was
still a double-digit difference, 42-32. What happened
in the halftime break and the second half is told by Bianchini
himself.
“In the corridor to the locker rooms, Barca’s big man
Mike Davis made a mistake. The players from both
teams were walking together and David said something
to Wright. Something that sounded like: ‘Hey
man, there’s no prize for you tonight.’ Wright entered
the locker room really angry and started screaming at
his teammates telling them to wake up. He raged into
the second half and almost won the game by himself.”
Larry Wright put his best weapons to good use:
speed and unstoppable one-on-one skills. When he
didn’t penetrate, he made outside shots. In minute 31,
Banco di Rome jumped ahead for the first time, 57-56,
and even though Barcelona would have options until
the last seconds, an offensive rebound by Clarence Kea
solved the game for Rome, 79-73. Wright finished with
27 points – 2 more than he had scored in the full seven
games of the NBA Finals of 1978 – and, of course, was
the MVP. Jose Manuel Fernandez, the journalist who
covered the game for Spanish newspaper “Mundo Deportivo”,
wrote in his recap:
400
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