Brizuela overthrows Barça and leads Unicaja to the semifinal

The Badalona Cup It will not have a classic, as has happened in four of the last five editions. A scoring display of Dario Brizuela knocked down barca, blowing up all the forecasts. Brizuela, the ‘Basque Mamba’, author of 27 points, was the hero of the Unicaja, the team that signed the great surprise of the competition on the first day and left the tournament without the champion. He Unicaja He achieved the feat after an extension (87-89), after a game that had an agonizing tone almost traced to the one experienced by the Madrid a couple of hours before to guarantee classification, his rival now in the semifinal this Saturday.

The party of @unicajaCB on the pitch after reaching the semifinals of the #ACB Cup #ReadyToRomperla pic.twitter.com/J1yGSY1ryu

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As much as he seemed to have it in hand, for a good part of the encounter, the barca he did not know how to finish off and scare away the ghosts of defeat against a Unicaja who persisted without fear and found in the inspiration of Brizuela and also of kendrick perryauthor of 22 points, the gasoline to compete and emerge victorious.

laprovittola he still had two free throws with eight tenths to go to force a second extension, but his failure in the first of the shots confirmed the justice of the triumph for Malaga and the failure for Barcelona in the first major title of the year.

Final. Laprovittola missed at the free throw line and the @unicajaCB accomplished a great feat. #ACB Cup #ReadyToRomperla pic.twitter.com/9z6aJm9m8M

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maximum intensity

The intensity and physical deployment marked the staging of the two teams. He Unicaja He was aware that he needed to raise the bar to match the effectiveness of the barca. And that was the initial objective of the interiors of Malaga, especially ejim in his pairing with mirotic. The zone defense that raised jasikevicius caused certain doubts in the Andalusian team. But the success of Perry, first, and of Brizuela, later, he managed to hold it. The Barcelona response came from the inspiration of mirotic and an aggressive Jokubaitis, who closed the quarter with a triple at the buzzer (21-20).

Match that makes any sports fan fall in love.
This is BA-LON-CES-TO
Mirotic vs. Brizuela #ACB Cup #ReadyToRomperla pic.twitter.com/8x6Sm9T5qR

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The team of jasikevicius and for five minutes he erased the Unicaja track. was applied the barca forcefully in both areas, especially after the entry of Nnaji, author of two spectacular dunks, by an excessively white Sanli, and that allowed him to open a score that seemed very favorable (34-21), halfway through the first half. But the box ibon navarro He is not one of those who lowers his arms. A timeout for the coach from Vitoria managed to reactivate the Malaga team, with Perry and Kalinowski as protagonists in attack and a notable defensive improvement, especially in the fight for the rebound, while the barca chained several errors, as soon as jasikevicius they opened the rotation, and that allowed them to tighten the score again before the break (41-34).

defenses rule

The scenario hardly changed after the restart, because the game became even more difficult with the permissiveness of the referees. The contacts gave way to blows in both areas and that muddied the show. Faced with some flash of quality, of Brizuela or Perry on the Malaga side, of Satoransky or Higgins in the azulgrana, the muscle was the one that set the pace and turned each basket into a conquest. He barca failed to break through and the Unicaja He kept pace and was nurtured by the conviction that he could win (55-50, m. 30).

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It seemed, finally, in the last stretch that the barca assumed his status as favorite with a good offensive run, in which open added five consecutive points, which seemed to unravel the outcome (64-53, m. 34). But that Barca arreón was only the prelude to a new charge from the Unicaja (a partial of 3-12), with Brizuela in the lead, to reactivate the people of Malaga and take the match to extra time and seal a historic victory.