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oct 02 2026Real Madrid won their Liga Endesa debut against Unicaja (89-87) after attempting 26 three-pointers and making just six. A 23.1% clip. Normally, those numbers would suggest a sluggish game and a team unable to reach seventy points. The opposite happened: they scored 89 and produced 116.4 points per 100 possessions.
That disconnect between three-point shooting and overall offensive output is probably the most interesting aspect of Pedro Martínez's team's opening performance. It suggests that the offense has more than one way to score.
A team that refuses to play slow
The first number that explains everything else is 76.5 possessions per forty minutes. That's a high pace, and it doesn't necessarily mean launching in six seconds: it means coming out of rebounds without pauses, taking quick inbounds passes, and reaching the opponent's end before their defense is fully set.
That plan rests on two specific playmakers. Facundo Campazzo and Théo Maledon distributed twelve of the team's twenty assists—seven for the Frenchman, five for the Argentine—and they're responsible for generating the initial advantage. Everything that follows is decided from there.
The offense attacks inside, doesn't settle for perimeter shots
The shooting numbers leave no room for interpretation. Madrid attempted 46 two-pointers versus only 26 three-pointers, and made 58.7% of the former. They also got to the free-throw line 22 times, converting at 77.3%.
In other words: the offense was built on penetration, continuation, and interior play. The FTr of 30.6 confirms it, and the distribution of those free throws says even more, because they came from different positions. Maledon finished 6/6 from the line, Campazzo 5/6, Damian Jones 2/4, Alberto Abalde 2/2, Gabriel Deck 1/2, and Pradilla 1/2. This isn't a team pressuring the rim from just one spot.
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Campazzo and Maledon: 32 points and 12 assists
The point guard duo doesn't just distribute. Maledon posted 17 points, seven assists, a perfect 6/6 from the line, and 23 in efficiency rating; Campazzo added 15 points and five assists. Combined, 32 points, 12 assists, and eleven free throws.
That last number is the most telling. It means the point guards aren't just running pick-and-rolls to pass: they attack the advantage, get into the paint, and force the defense to make contact-heavy decisions. Maledon, in particular, balances scoring and playmaking in a way that makes him the centerpiece of the offense.
Two centers with different roles
In the paint, Madrid has two distinct profiles. Damian Jones scored 8 points on a perfect 3/3 from two-point range with four free throws in just 15:48, the typical output of a center who receives the ball near the rim and finishes vertically.
Walter Tavares had a quieter offensive night—2/5 from two, four points—but grabbed eleven rebounds, three of them offensive, and recorded two blocks. His impact comes from elsewhere: size, rebounding, and defensive presence.
The combinations of Campazzo or Maledon with Tavares or Jones form, therefore, the skeleton of the team's pick-and-roll game, with two different finishing options to choose from depending on the situation.
Offensive rebounding as a safety net
Here lies the most defining trait. Madrid finished with 13 offensive rebounds and 29 defensive ones, 42 total, and a 34.2% offensive rebounding rate. They recover, roughly, one out of every three missed shots.
That's exactly what allowed them to win a game shooting 23% from three. The distribution doesn't depend on a single player either: Tavares grabbed eleven rebounds, Deck eight—six of them defensive, which helps them run in transition afterward—Luwawu-Cabarrot five, and Pradilla three.
In terms of identity: it's a team that wants to finish possessions physically. If they miss, they fight for the second chance.
Few turnovers for the pace they play
The other number supporting their offensive output is ball security. An 11.9% turnover rate—eleven for the entire game—is low for a team playing at 76.5 possessions, because high pace usually brings mistakes.
And the twenty assists yield an AST% of 60.6%: six out of every ten baskets come after a pass. It's not, at least based on these numbers, a team reliant on isolation basketball. There's individual creation from Campazzo and Maledon, but the intent seems to be creating an advantage and moving the ball from there.
The three-pointer as consequence, not starting point
The 3PAr sits at 36.1%: just over a third of their field-goal attempts were three-pointers, a proportion that isn't high by modern standards. And the attempts were distributed—six from Luwawu-Cabarrot, five from Campazzo, four from Pradilla, three from Abalde, three from Deck, two from Maledon—which suggests shots born from a prior advantage rather than an offense built around the three-point line.
The problem with the game wasn't generating them. It was making them.
What we still don't know
It's worth saying clearly: all of the above comes from a single game. A 23% three-point clip is a statistical anomaly just as much as 45% would be, and the sample is too small to talk about trends. The Unicaja they faced also arrived with three absences—Tyson Pérez, Tyler Kalinoski, and Yannick Nzosa—which affects any defensive analysis.
What the opener does provide is a clue about where this Madrid wants to live: in pace, in penetration, at the free-throw line, and on the offensive glass. The perimeter will add when it comes. In Madrid, they'll trust that those 26 three-pointers start falling.
