Dante Exum body-slammed in wild EuroLeague brawl between Real Madrid and Partizan Belgrade
Dante Exum ruptured a tendon in his toe after he was slammed to the court by Madrid’s Guerschon Yabusele
Things got extremely heated in the final minutes of a EuroLeague playoff game between Real Madrid and Partizan Belgrade on Thursday.
After officials had finally separated the two teams in Madrid, they just called the game off.
Partizan was up 95-80 in the final minutes of the playoff series when Madrid guard Sergio Llull fouled Partizan forward Kevin Punter as Punter tried to drive around him. Punter immediately reacted and charged at Llull, which sparked a full bench-clearing brawl at the center of the court in Madrid.
Several punches were thrown, and fans even came in from the side of the court to try and separate players briefly. At one point, Madrid’s Guerschon Yabusele body-slammed Partizan’s Dante Exum to the court hard.
Guerschon Yabusele and Dante Exum involved in this massive brawl between Real Madrid and Partizan.
Refs suspended the game after this pic.twitter.com/EzGjtQiMHL— Cameron Tabatabaie (@CTabatabaie) April 27, 2023
Exum left the court with a limp, and Partizan’s doctor said he ruptured a tendon in his toe. Exum played in the NBA for the Utah Jazz and Cleveland Cavaliers from 2014-2021.
The EuroLeague awarded the win to Partizan despite the game having 100 seconds left when officials called it off. That gave them a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series. The league is investigating, and said it will hand down punishments within the next day.
"EuroLeague Basketball strongly condemns the events that happened at the end of the game," the league said, via The Associated Press. "Such events do not represent the values of respect that the league and its clubs promote and that the sport of basketball embodies."
Game 3 of the series is set for Tuesday in Belgrade.
"This is in the hands of the officials and in the hands of the EuroLeague," Partizan coach Zeljko Obradovic, who had previously coached Madrid, said, via The Associated Press. "I believe that what happened is not good for the image of basketball, not good for the image of Real Madrid nor for Partizan.
“This should never happen. … When we go to Belgrade tomorrow, I'm going to talk about that. I'm going to try to calm everybody so that we receive Real Madrid like the people here have received us. That they are going to support our team, yes, but that they are not going to do anything against Real Madrid."
