Extending its great season, Unicaja confirmed this Thursday that it is returning to the Olympus of the world. Endesa League After dominating Lenovo Tenerife with authority in the second game of the series, six years after brilliantly making it to the semi-finals (97-74), from here will face Barcelona or Valencia Basket for a ticket in the final.
A victory over Martín Carpena, who was jam-packed celebrating his team’s success Being in the top four of the ACB again with something that hasn’t happened since 2017exactly when they knocked out Tenerife on a 2-1 aggregate.
Lenovo Tenerife’s three-pointers in a row in their first attack showed the great debut of Txus Vidorreta’s team, who had to win yes or yes to force the third game, but their great staging resulted in a mirage.
From the rebounds to the shootout that started with a physical game, Malaga played very close to the pole: These teams are more than what their great shooters say, but also points in consistency, effort and paint.
In this first encounter, Tenerife prevailed, forcing Ibon Navarro to take a time-out. 13-22 An unchanging result in the first quarter until the second act is the result of errors in Unicaja’s shots, most of which were forced by the good Canary defence.
Successfully mixed passion was let into the start of the second round by Unicaja, who scored five consecutive points from Tyler Kalinoski and Trio of Dylan Osetkowski (21-22) firing a carpena full of fans).
Between technical failure and rail-stand voltage, Unicaja appeared with its meteoric versionwhich he normally finds in his pavilion and often brings devastating episodes.
Thus, Unicaja, who had taken a few knocks from the outside, won by four points (27-23) and it was now Txus Vidorreta who tried to get them back into the game by scolding his team in dead time.
He turned to Gio Shermadini, who was skeptical until the last moment, but the formula for taking the Endesa League’s MVP did not immediately bear fruit (he finished with just three points) and Unicaja continued to score by necessityHe led the offense until he cut the timeout after the second quarter, where he scored 37 points and conceded just 14 points (50-36).
Lenovo Tenerife got a little sleepy after the break, overwhelmed by the scene and couldn’t stop the bleeding; with Kendrick Perry as chief and a group of surgical masteries behind him, Unicaja started having fun (68-46).
it happened A nearly impossible task for Lenovo Tenerife, which had to score 22 points in less than 15 minutes.look at what the stats say about his opponent: 80 percent two-shots and also better two-pointers.
The final quarter was just a formality Txus Vidorreta’s team had to go through, realizing that defeat had already been written with 20 points down with four minutes to go.
the context is already invited players from both teams, but above all from Unicaja, to inflate their statistics.standing ovation (21 points) game high scorer Tyler Kalinoski and Perry with 16 points and 20 PIR.
Ibon Navarro’s team faces the winner of the draw between Barça and Valencia Basket in the semi-finals of the final stage of the Endesa League and this team wins 1-0 for now.
Data sheet:
97- Unicaja (13+37+26+21): Perry (16), Kalinoski (21), Djedovic (9), Osetkowski (10), Kravish (6) -top five- Sima (0), Ejim (12), Carter (5), Thomas (2), Brizuela ( 13).
74- Lenovo Tenerife (22+14+21+17): Huertas (12), Bolmaro (11), Salin (13), Sastre (0), Guerra (6) -top five- Jaime Fernández (0), Fitipaldo (0), Doornekamp (13), Cook (3), Shermadini (3), Diagnosis (6).
referees: Emilio Pérez Pizarro, Luis Miguel Castillo and Cristóbal Sánchez. Kendrick Perry was eliminated due to a pile of fouls.
events: The second match of the Endesa League quarter-final draw was played in front of 10,600 spectators at the José María Martín Carpena Pavilion. Before the match, women’s handball team Málaga Costa del Sol was honored the day after winning their first league title.