A serious Barcelona in defense and with many arguments from its outside line in attack minimized Valencia Basket this Sunday, added its fifth victory in a row in the Endesa League and underpinned its leadership with its twelve points of rent.
The match was intense and at the pace set by the outsiders. Chris Jones and Jonah Radebaugh fueled the home score but Nico Laprovittola and Tomas Satorasnki nurtured the visitors, who took advantage of their greatest talent in this area to give Barcelona the initiative in the game and on the scoreboard. The Blaugrana domain of the rebound in both baskets underpinned that script (18-23, m.10).
The locals remained hooked on the match with a choral game but Jared Harper’s entry onto the court, despite his speed, made it much more predictable due to his difficulties in sharing the ball and that ended up disconnecting Valencia from the clash.
At first, it was much harder for Barça’s second unit to score but after a few minutes of exchanging errors, a couple of rebounds from Da Silva gave Sarunas Jasikevicius’s men confidence, Cory Higgins joined the visiting party and the it shot itself. A couple of triples by Jones held Valencia but the distance to the break did not change (40-55, m.20).
The script did not change in the first minutes of the third quarter, but when it seemed that Barça’s lead was going to reach twenty points, a fit of rage from Bojan Dubljevic, with eight points in a row, gave Valencia an opportunity to get hooked on the clash . Two triples in a row by Nico Lapprovittola put the game back on track
Valencia’s new attempt to stay in the fight came sustained by a couple of shots from Klemen Prepelic and had a decisive moment when, after the referees whistled for a protested attacking foul on Víctor Claver, they pointed out a technique to the local bench for protesting and disqualified the local coach Álex Mumbrú for the same reason (60-77, m.30).
With the Fonteta on, Valencia made use of that rage to, with more points from Prepelic, feed the dream of forcing an even finish but lacked continuity, rebounds and better arguments to make a solid Barcelona nervous, although it managed to make up the defeat .
80 – Valencia Basket (18 22 20 20): Jones (19), Radebaugh (7), Puerto (5), Pradilla (-), Dubljevic (11) -five starters- Harper (11), Claver (-), Prepelic (11), Webb III (2), López-Arostegui (7) and Alexander (7).
92 – Barcelona (23 32 22 15): Laprovittola (21), Satorasnki (12), Kalinic (14), Vesely (4), Nnaji (-) -five starters- Da Silva (7), Paulí (2), Sanli (5), Abrines (3), Higgins (18) and Jokubaitis (6).
Referees: Jiménez, Serrano and Sánchez Sixto. They eliminated fear of protesting the local coach Álex Mumbrú (m.28).
Incidents: match corresponding to the sixth day of the regular phase of the Endesa League played in the Fuente de San Luis pavilion before 7,870 spectators. Before the start of the match, a minute of silence was observed for the death of Pipo Arnau, former director of Valencia Basket and a key person in the founding of the club.
