After an exhausting exercise of will to overcome an adverse score, having to endure the lack of scoring success and compensate for it by tightening concentration in defense, Baskonia fell in Buesa against Red Star (73-75) after having achieved the more difficult. A basket by Canaan, with 3.4 seconds left, sealed the game, because Moneke could not reply with a forced shot in the last action. Laso’s team had managed to win over their fans in the final moments, after being 15 points behind, because they overcame that difference and took the lead (72-71), with 2.12 to go, but in these cases , fortune usually intervenes when the forces are already very even, and leaned towards the side of the Serbian team.
All this happened because an infamous second quarter forced Baskonia to chase Red Star the rest of the game. As happened in Paris a few months ago, the Vitorian team’s operating system failed, their computer turned off and they had to restart, while the Serbs continued to operate on 100% battery power. After a decent first quarter, at least on the scoreboard (16-16), although the Vitorian team wasted an eight-point lead (14-6), its defensive inattention and its fatal errors in three-point shooting, after fifteen attempts without scoring took their toll on him. The visitors were more accurate with the shot, but, in addition, the vigor that Baskonia exhibited in the first minutes, in which they clearly outrebounded their rival under both baskets, was diluted.
So with a cocktail of varied ingredients, the game changed direction. What was once heads became tails; The light became dark, and the handful of Serbian fans, sullen and silent in the first minutes, became an expansive and happy group, celebrating for Vitoria like Pedro for his home, as if it were the Stark Arena.
Baskonia’s last advantage, almost until the end of the game, came with the first basket of the second quarter, which put the score at 18-16, but a run of 12-26, with Baskonia having trouble running back, resulted decisive for the fate of the match. It seemed that there was no more entertainment left than to observe the evolution of the newcomer Luka Samanic, a Serbian former member of Barça, San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks, and who showed interesting things, because the scoreboard seemed doomed.
But the Baskonia character appeared, the three-pointers began to enter, the defense became fierce, and it was no longer so easy for Bolomboy or Miller-Macintyre to enter like knives through butter. The light reflected what was happening on the court, the difference narrowed, the tie came, and then, at 2.12, after two free throws that Howard scored, Laso’s team took the lead. And perhaps they had too much ambition when trying a triple to widen the difference; Then, at 1.25m Hall put a monumental block and with 44 seconds left, Canaan tied it. In the penultimate action of the game, Howard drove to the basket, Giedraitis ran over him from behind and the referees saw nothing. Canaan scored, Moneke could not tie with his shot and the victory went to Serbia.
