The Barça hits first

Barça took the first game of the semifinal, if the boxing analogy is allowed, on points. He neutralized Unicaja in a first half in which he was clearly superior, but got into trouble from the third quarter. Rather, it was the visitors who got them into trouble. Finally managing to display his game, showing intensity and putting Barça in trouble. Excellent role of Sima, very good of Ejim, but disastrous from the triple. An abusive 6 of 31, exaggerated, which ended up costing them the match. Barça did not have their best night, especially in attack, but they did not suffer excessively until the end. Unicaja had three seconds to hit a three-pointer and send the game into overtime, but they couldn’t shoot. They did not leave knocked out, much less, very much alive, from the first confrontation.

Barça, as expected, opted for the triple. At least at the beginning, without luck, where the errors far outweighed the successes. On both teams, they missed the first nine shots. More than two minutes without points at the Palau, where other dynamics that would be repeated throughout the first part were already glimpsed. The most obvious, again without any surprise, that Barça was not going to let Unicaja run. With an active Brizuela and a Mirotic with a lot of prominence, the match started even.

It was the triples, always the triples, that unbalanced the match already in the first ten minutes. Abrines and Sanli were the enforcers, taking advantage of Sima’s weaknesses to overcome the blocks. Unicaja suffered with a run of 11-0, which Ibón Navarro quickly stopped. With dead time and taking Sima out. He bet the Basque for a more exterior quintet and, although he did not shrink the gap, he did stop the blow (32-22).

Unicaja was not faithful to his style, plain and simple, because Barça did not let him. The Barcelona defense scratched the excellence, tormenting the people of Malaga with the points after stealing. They left Perry out of the game. Nervousness rose, with techniques and protests by both teams, increasing the visiting losses. The game was so face to face with the blaugranas that Satoransky even accidentally hit a triple (it was a pass to Vesely) while Unicaja was shipwrecked from 6’75 (45-31).

Malaga’s reaction, after the break, was brilliant. They returned to their roots, to their DNA and were finally able to run. Because they were more intense, because they pushed harder and because they shot better. Better. Yankuba Sima redeemed himself, he put the equipment on his back and was the man of the room. With control of the visiting rebound and before the general blackout of the Catalans, the game was already in one possession (57-55). Ejim, throughout the game, was a nightmare for Jasikevicius’ men.

To beat Barça, however, it takes more than a few good minutes. It’s not even worth it with a very good fourth, as was the third, from Unicaja. Because in the end, Barça is also Vesely’s mid-range shots, Kuric’s triples or Satoransky’s penetrations. And that rarely goes away entirely. Unicaja did not maintain the scoring rhythm and three from the end the distance went to ten (77-67). And they didn’t even give up. Dominators in the offensive rebound, they enjoyed too many second chances. They came close, they could even force extension, but Barça ended up imposing.

barca

Statistics

13 Thomas Satoransky
33 Nikola Mirotic
twenty-one Alex Abrines
6 Jan Veseley
twenty Nicholas Laprovittola
24 Kyle Kuric
5 Sertac Sanli
31 Rokas Jokubaitis
10 Nikola Kalinic
23 Mike Toby
8 Sergi Martinez
46 james naji

Statistics

	Min	pts	RT	RO	DR	Ast	Per	rec	Tap	T1	T2	T3	FR	CF	Val
13 Thomas Satoransky	29	10	0	0	0	5	0	2	0	2/2	1/7	2/2	2	2	10
33 Nikola Mirotic	26	14	4	0	4	1	1	2	0	5/5	3/7	1/5	5	2	13
twenty-one Alex Abrines	25	12	4	2	2	0	2	1	0	0/0	3/3	2/4	2	4	eleven
6 Jan Veseley	twenty-one	12	4	3	1	1	1	1	1	0/3	6/10	0/0	3	3	10
twenty Nicholas Laprovittola	12	5	1	0	1	0	0	1	0	2/2	0/0	1/1	2	4	5
24 Kyle Kuric	22	7	3	1	2	2	0	0	0	2/2	1/3	1/3	3	1	10
5 Sertac Sanli	18	13	3	0	3	1	0	0	0	2/2	1/4	3/3	1	1	14
31 Rokas Jokubaitis	16	9	2	1	1	4	0	1	0	3/3	3/4	0/1	3	1	fifteen
10 Nikola Kalinic	14	2	1	1	0	2	1	1	0	0/0	1/4	0/2	2	2	0
23 Mike Toby	13	0	2	1	1	1	0	0	1	0/0	0/0	0/2	0	2	0
8 Sergi Martinez	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0/0	0/0	0/0	0	0	0
46 james naji	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0/0	0/0	0/0	0	0	0

Unicaja

Statistics

22 Melvin Ejim
12 nihad djedovic
55 kendrick perry
8 Dario Brizuela
Four. Five david kravish
eleven tyson carter
77 Yankuba Sima
4 Tyler Kalinoski
9 Alberto Diaz
1 Dylan Osetkowski
10 Will Thomas
7 Jonathan Barreiro

Statistics

	Min	pts	RT	RO	DR	Ast	Per	rec	Tap	T1	T2	T3	FR	CF	Val
22 Melvin Ejim	23	14	9	4	5	1	2	0	0	3/4	4/5	1/1	4	4	twenty
12 nihad djedovic	twenty	2	4	0	4	0	1	1	1	0/0	1/1	0/2	1	1	5
55 kendrick perry	17	2	4	0	4	1	3	2	0	0/0	1/3	0/3	5	5	1
8 Dario Brizuela	eleven	5	1	1	0	1	2	0	0	1/2	23	0/2	1	1	0
Four. Five david kravish	10	4	3	0	3	0	1	0	0	0/0	2/4	0/1	0	1	2
eleven tyson carter	24	10	0	0	0	6	0	1	0	3/3	23	1/5	4	2	14
77 Yankuba Sima	twenty	19	4	2	2	2	2	0	3	1/1	9/9	0/1	1	1	25
4 Tyler Kalinoski	19	12	5	3	2	1	0	0	0	2/4	2/5	2/5	1	4	7
9 Alberto Diaz	14	4	3	2	1	1	1	0	0	1/2	0/1	1/3	1	1	2
1 Dylan Osetkowski	13	5	6	4	2	1	3	0	1	2/2	0/1	1/4	2	1	7
10 Will Thomas	eleven	4	2	2	0	2	0	1	0	0/0	2/4	0/2	0	2	3
7 Jonathan Barreiro	eleven	0	2	0	2	0	1	0	0	0/0	0/0	0/2	1	1	-1