Murcia will never forget this season. Their fantastic regular league, closed with a brilliant fifth place, the happy games on their court, where only two teams came out smiling, and now this tie against Valencia Basket in which they broke the predictions and with two wins in the Fuente pavilion of San Luis, the final second (77-84), qualified for the first time in its history for the semifinals of the ACB League. UCAM continues its path, where it will meet Unicaja (they beat Baxi Manresa 2-0). The taronja team once again gives up early and seems to entrust its project to the return to Valencia of Pedro Martínez, the coach who led them to win the League.
At this point, three games in seven days, the two contenders for the semifinals already knew each other by heart. The strong and weak points. There is no longer much room for surprises. And there, all that remains is to look ahead, and not negotiate with the effort. Valencia Basket had recovered the home court factor and, with it, its favorite status with a great victory in Murcia, but Sito Alonso’s team had not come to participate in the taronja party. His defense, always very closed, making life difficult for Xavi Albert’s powerful centers, challenging his opponent’s shooters, allowed him to dominate Valencia Basket.
UCAM Murcia showed from the first attack (0-2) that they competed without complexes, with blind faith in their options. The prize, the first semi-finals in their history, was too juicy not to die trying. The first quarter was an all-out bombardment. Four triples scored from five attempts, three of them from Dylan Ennis, the Canadian with Jamaican nationality who massacred the Valencia rim.
Valencia Basket responded with an identical argument to turn the score around. Justin Anderson, a player who doesn’t think twice before shooting, made the same three-pointers as Ennis, three, to put his team ahead for the first time just before the end of the opening quarter (27-26). This advantage did not grow much more in the second (32-28) due to the intensity of UCAM Murcia, who knew they had to go to the limit to assault La Fonteta. So much fire cost Sito Alonso a technique. There was no truce. On neither side. And Albert demanded quality minutes from Chris Jones, very physically depleted, without his physical displays of the entire season so that Jovic could breathe.
The Serbian point guard regained his breath, but the fouls weighed him down too much. Albert tried it with Harper and Radebaugh destroyed him. The former Taronja player, unleashed, grew and scored nine points in just two and a half minutes. His 15 points in the last quarter decided a duel in which the university coach’s decision to put his center at five, no matter Diagné that the newcomer Morin, in the heart of the paint, served to neutralize the interior game of Valencia Basket , who took the ball to the corners, but there he did not find the points that could have changed the direction of the game.
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