There was one day, just beginning the season, around matchday 5, when he stepped on the accelerator and didn’t lift his foot again. Pedro Martínez’s team, the only coach who has made Valencia league champions, back last summer, imposes such a wild scoring pace that almost every game ends close to 100 points. Every hand on this team is a threat. Everyone can score and everyone scores. The rivals, both from the ACB and the Eurocup, end up full of pecks from the countless shooters taronja. Almost everyone ends up bending the knee, but not this Unicaja, six victories in a row already, and even less in Carpena, where they resisted many minutes behind on the scoreboard to end up achieving a victory that allows them to finish the first round as leader.
Valencia Basket continued with its basketball cheerful but not too much under the green fire of Martín Carpena. Nine triples taronja against only a couple from Unicaja in the first half. When a crack opened (23-33), Ibon Navarro, one of the most lucid minds in the ACB, poured cement into his area. There is no other way to contain a rival that accelerates from 0 to 100 in each game. They are both teams in which it is difficult to detect who is killing you because they are all killing you. The two coaches distribute the minutes like no other between two squads where there is a lot of variety. And if Alberto Díaz manages to muzzle the brilliant Jean Montero, Pedro Martínez puts Chris Jones on the board and greets the public with two triples.
The team, despite their poor percentage from outside the curve of 6.75, managed to weather the storm before the break (38-46) and left the locker room determined to assert their power at Carpena, where they had only fallen once this course. An inspiring streak, a 12-3 run, allowed Unicaja to regain control (50-49). There was no truce. The two best teams of the first round face to face. Two styles colliding on one of the hottest courts in Spain.
He did not have time to regret the losses that were accumulating in the outside game – Melvin Ejim was the last to fall. Osetkowski to the 3rd position and continue. The people of Malaga were recovering their aim. They were more dedicated to rebounding, another of Valencia Basket’s strengths. I finally got to know him.
The problem is that there is no rest against Pedro Martínez’s men. The foot always pressing the accelerator. To what it gives. And as soon as you breathe after a comeback, you see it happen again. Follow me if you can. Unicaja, at least, had made the necessary adjustments so that Valencia Basket did not fall apart. They were always going to be even. It was the moment for those who know how to enjoy water up to their necks. Like Jean Montero, who closed the third quarter with a memorable triple. But also Kendrick Perry. Or the tough Osetkowski. Two of those who ended up taking a step forward to stop Valencia Basket once and for all, also with a forest of hands on defense, in a colossal match.
Baxi Manresa, to the Cup
Baxi Manresa managed to become the seventh team qualified for the Copa del Rey after defeating Joventut, at the Nou Congost, by 87-72. This Sunday the last participant will be known. A place that Barcelona, Casademont Zaragoza, Baskonia and UCAM Murcia still aspire to.
