It was the battle of the Croats, the most anticipated matchup in recent times. Croat-on-Croat violence was not only expected, but encouraged, as the two players faced off in one 48-minute bout to determine who the superior Croat was. The entire sovereign nation of Croatia stayed up late into the night or perhaps even early into the morning just to witness the epic confrontation between two Croat behemoths. Bojan Bogdanovic vs. Mario Hezonja.
Um, well, Bogdanovic won it pretty handily, but it wasn’t as lopsided as it could have been given that Hezonja scored one off his season high with twelve points. There’s not really any doubt that Bogdanovic is the better play right now, so this otherwise-unexciting regular-season game between the Magic and Wizards might not have been as anticipated as I made it out to be. What really would have put it over the top is Damjan Rudez entering the game, but he didn’t, so the NBA missed a chance to have a record three Croatian players playing on the court at the same time. Croatia would probably make March 5th a national holiday if that happened.