A timely reaction in the third quarter, when the situation looked worse, allowed Real Madrid to beat Unicaja and maintain their unbeaten status this season at the Movistar Arena. Scariolo’s men, who have just lost to Monaco in the Euroleague, … It took them a while to find a way to get their hands on a rampaging Unicaja on offense, who closed the first half with over 50 points. It was only when the Italian coach brought his defensive specialists together on the pitch that the comeback was possible. Garuba and Feliz were the most notable, alongside regulars Hezonja (top scorer of the match, with 19 points), Campazzo and Tavares. Balcerowski was the best in the Malaga team.
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the real Madrid
Campazzo (11), Llull (6), Procida (4), Hezonja (19), Tavares (7) -starting five-. Abalde (5), Maledon (15), Deck (4), Garuba (13), Feliz (7), Len (0), Almansa (-). -
Unique
Perry (11), Barreiro (2), Duarte (16), Balcerowski (17), Tyson Pérez (4) -starting five-. Audige (6), Webb (0), Kalinoski (0), Alberto Díaz (4), Sulejmanovic (7), Rubit (3), Tillie (12). -
Referees
Jordi Aliaga, Francisco Araña, Esperanza Mendoza. They picked Tavares out for five personal fouls. -
Partials
27-30; 19-24 (46-54); 25-12 (71-66); 20-16 (91-82) -
Flag
Movistar Arena.
The match opened with a first quarter without brake or truce, with two teams launching in search of the opposing ring and neither of them managing to bend the arm of their rival. With each attempt by Madrid to take the lead, Unicaja responded with an even more forceful response. The result was a disjointed and anarchic game, in which gross errors mixed with prodigious successes and where players like Hezonja and Perry seemed to move like fish in water. A triple from the Croatian gave the Whites the maximum advantage in this first sequence (14-9), even if it was not yet time for significant differences. Unicaja took the lead only nine minutes in, when five straight points from Tillie tipped the balance just before the first horn sounded.
Tillie himself opened the second act with another triple of a prescient nature. Because Unicaja then began to truly believe in victory and accelerated its actions even more, also in defense, against a Madrid showing symptoms of fatigue. Sulejmanovic took advantage of Tavares’ absence and punished Len to increase Malaga’s lead to more than ten points (35-46, min. 15), a disadvantage that forced Scariolo to interrupt the match with a timeout.
With the return of Campazzo and Tavares to the field, Madrid managed to rebalance the forces. As in Monaco last Friday, the Argentinian and the Cape Verdean took the lead to stop what was starting to look like an escape. Thanks to two of his actions and a new triple from Hezonja, the Whites were alive at halftime (46-54).
More aggression
Unicaja maintained its line after the restart, stimulated by the points of a Duarte who had until then gone unnoticed. It was only when Madrid found themselves 14 points behind that they resorted to an oft-famous epic. Scariolo put a concrete team on the field, with Abalde, Garuba and Feliz as defensive specialists, and with them the confidence returned. The Galician, with five consecutive points and a recovery, gave the first slap; Hezonja, the second, with another triple; and Garuba, gigantic in the box, finished in front of the paint to give Madrid the lead for the first time in many minutes. After the offensive wind of the first half, Unicaja, half eliminated, only had 12 points in the third quarter (71-66).
There was no going back. Madrid stood firm in the result, with good minutes from Maledon, and did not allow Unicaja to get close enough to put the result in doubt. Thus, they were saved from a defeat – the second in a row and the first at home – which would have set off some alarms before the end of the year.
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