The team from Malaga, the executioner of Barça in the quarter-finals, beat a white team denied on the shot and surpassed on the rebound to reach the fourth final
Neither Barca nor Real Madrid. The Copa del Rey in Badalona is different and that is due to Unicaja, a true giant killer who is the marvel of an unpredictable and magical tournament. The history of this Ibon Navarro team will be remembered for a long time, the men in green have earned it hard, although the trophy is still not in the showcases of Malaga. No one had knocked out the two transatlantic Spanish basketball players in a cup during the ACB stage. The performance says it all.
The curious thing is that while the outsiders shone against the Catalans in the quarter-finals, with Kendrick Perry and Dario Brizuela as stilettos, against the whites the singing voice was led by two great players, the Americans David Kravish and Dylan Osetkowski. Together they killed every prediction, which dictated a theoretical Madrid superiority in painting. Madrid, in which only Tavares and Deck were saved, succumbed absolutely denied in the triple (3/21 for a disastrous 14.2%), but what’s worse, it also surpassed it in the rebound (25 goals for 34 greens).
Unicaja’s staging was magnificent, with Perry and Kravish, two of Barca’s executors, quickly tuning in from a distance. Madrid, as in all their quarter-final match against Valencia, started fighting with the shot of three and no longer lifted their heads in this aspect of the game. Given their problems with the long shot, the solution was for the white team to impose their internal arsenal, but plan B would also fail only to be forgotten on a white afternoon.
Williams-Goss (9), Musa (10), Hezonja (2), Yabusele (6) and Tavares (19) -starting five-, Sergio Rodríguez (5), Causeur (8), Hanga (3), Rudy Fernández, Deck (15), Cornélie and Poirier (5).
Perry (10), Carter (12), Djedovic (5), Ejim (7) and Kravish (22) -starting five- Alberto Díaz, Saint-Supery, Brizuela (1), Barreiro (3), Kalinoski (11), Will Thomas (8) and Osetkowski (14).
Points from Dzanan Musa, more of a protagonist than in the quarter-finals, and a choral contribution saw Madrid undercut its rival like a Malaysian drop, to leave two at the end of the first quarter. He didn’t need a percentage that wasn’t even acceptable in the three (1/7) shot, though the gap in that facet of the Madrid game was starting to get alarming.
Nor did the rebound accompany him, a traditional ally, the team of Chus Mateo, who, despite everything, kept the pulse of Unicaja, then without the shine of the victory against Barça. It was a duel of them to crush stone, might to might. Perry’s incineration input returned command to the Andalusian team confident of their chances of returning to a final three years after the one they lost precisely to Madrid in their hometown of Martín Carpena.
Between Musa and his impossible penetrations and Deck and his idyll with the rear and the bottom line, Madrid pulled without any news of the launch. On the green side, another great game from Kravish, very important in the Malaga region after the injuries of Augusto César Lima and Yankuba Sima.
Will Thomas and especially Osetkowski gave him a hand after the break to put the green +6 (43-49). Williams-Goss and Deck responded, the one who has always been in Madrid lately, but little more than the whites. The challenge of the greens continued to win integers. Ibon Navarro’s team increased its maximum income to nine points (57-66). And that the unpredictable Brizuela didn’t get a goal in the game all match.
The third quarter ended when Chacho Rodríguez logged Madrid’s second triple. Significant. The white team started the deciding set seven down, getting desperate as the clock ticked, at an unrelenting disadvantage. A basket of three by Kalinoski put Madrid on the brink of collapse, with Unicaja on eleven with 7:25 left. Chus Mateo rallied his team in search of solutions that couldn’t be guessed, but the bad news piled up for the white coach after another three-pointer from Carter and Musa’s injury.
As if that wasn’t enough, a clash of giants between Tavares and Kravish left the Cape Verdean shaken, his face cut and bloody. Madrid was half buried 66-80 five minutes from time. The injured Tavares took the matter to heart to worthy of his team’s proverbial belief in victory, but it wasn’t enough. In Badalona, the legend of the giant killer is written. Unicaja is in the final and also through the most difficult circus guide to date.
Source: La Verdad
I am Shawn Partain, a journalist and content creator working for the Today Times Live. I specialize in sports journalism, writing articles that cover major sporting events and news stories. With a passion for storytelling and an eye for detail, I strive to be accurate and insightful in my work.
