Real Madrid will enter the EuroLeague Final Four without the two big men the team relies on most. Walter Tavares and Alex Len are both injured and officially miss the season's biggest club tournament in Europe - a blow that not even the top favourite handles lightly.

Real's medical team announced that Len has been diagnosed with an injury to the plantar fascia in his left foot. The former NBA centre joined the squad this summer, but never managed to secure stable minutes. In 23 regular-season games he averaged 3.0 points and 2.0 rebounds - not a disaster, but not the kind of contribution Real will feel as a loss.

The problem is Tavares. The Cape Verdean centre suffered a tear of the medial collateral ligament in his left knee in the first quarter-final game against Hapoel - an injury that for centres of his rank means at least several weeks off the floor. For Real, that's a disaster at the very moment when their margin is smallest.

Tavares was one of the most dominant centres in Europe this season - averaging 9.8 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.9 blocks, with a deserved place in the All-EuroLeague second team. He was the wall that dictated tempo and defence on both ends of the floor - a role that in modern basketball is rarely filled by a single player.

Without him and without Len, Madrid now has to carry the Final Four with Eli Ndiaye and young centres from the second rotation. Coach Chus Mateo will have to improvise, and the opponents - Olympiacos, Panathinaikos and Fenerbahce - are exactly the kind of sides that play on physical dominance in the paint.

For Balkan readers this is a big story, because the Final Four is traditionally decided precisely by the big men. When one of the three main teams shows up without its anchor - the others automatically gain weight. Olympiacos and Panathinaikos see this as a gift. Fenerbahce, with Nikola Kalinic and Bogdan Bogdanovic in the core rotation, get one more reason to believe in another European title.

Real isn't a team that surrenders. But even they have limits. Without Tavares in the Final Four, those limits may now be visible even to those who voted them as the favourite.