There will be no clásico in the Badalona Cup, where Barça will not be able to defend their crown after falling in extra time against a Unicaja that never gave up despite being behind on the scoreboard for almost the entire game. He arranged for Laprovittola from two free throws with eight tenths to go in extra time to force another five minutes, but he missed. The Argentine left disappointed but the defeat is not attributable only to him, but to Barca's inability to play positional attacks clearly when the score was tight.
The combat did not disappoint, hard and tactical already from the initial jump. Despite their significant losses in the inside game, Unicaja tried to combat Barça's physical superiority by putting all the intensity they had inside. With Perry as a constant threat, the people from Malaga endured Barça's first challenge, which was signed by an inspired Mirotic, who collaborated with points and rebounds with apparent ease. Perry's first change of batteries, who asked for the exhausted change, was provided by Brizuela to feed equality.
Jasikevicius's team seemed to command but could not find a way to break away from a rival as fierce as those who wear the signature of Ibon Navarro tend to be. Not even the energy of Jokubaitis, who little by little is greening up his laurels, with a triple on the first horn was capable of breaking the game.
But that first round had little to do with the second. With constant rotations, Jasikevicius managed to refine his defense and with a couple of good three-pointers he began to open a gap in the huge Olympian's light. Nnaji was on his side too, jumping over two opponents to chase the ball through the clouds and test the stability of the basket. Although the first Barça stretch ended up being signed by Higgins, with two baskets in a row that stretched to 34-21 (minute 15). The Barça machinery worked perfectly, both when it came to feeding the scoreboard and when it came to drying Unicaja with a defense of those from the manual, the Andalusians unable to score their first basket in play until after five minutes of the quarter. It was through a three-pointer from Kalinoski, which raised the spirits of his team a bit, which somewhat recovered normality and began to recover a bit of ground, although always far away on the scoreboard.
The second part was quite a spectacle, holding onto the Unicaja game like a tick with everything they had against a Barça that was not too bright but always intense. Brizuela started inspired, awakening old ghosts – he scored 33 points in the quarterfinals two years ago to force overtime – with Perry as the perfect squire. The Catalans defended themselves by taking more rebounds and scoring triples. But they went into a bonus too early in the last act and that allowed the people from Malaga to gradually cut back with free kicks until Brizuela equalized the score. Higgins missed with the last shot and they had to play five extra minutes.
There, the people from Malaga were more serene and ended up signing the surprise with a bomb from Perry, to which Laprovittola did not know how to respond from the free kick. The champion said goodbye to the first.
87 - Barça (21 20 14 21 11): Satorasnky (11), Laprovittola (12), Kalinic (3), Mirotic (15), Vesely (7) -starting five-, Sanli (4), Sergi Martínez (0) , Abrines (8), Higgins (10), Tobey (6), Jokubaitis (7) and Nnaji (4).
89 - Unicaja (20 14 16 26 13): Perry (22), Carter (3), Barreiro (0), Kravish (10), Ejim (0) -cinco inicial-, Osetkowski (8), Kalinoski (12), Brizuela (27), Djedovic (0) and Thomas (5).
Referees: Carlos Peruga, Fernando Calatrava, Jorge Martínez and Martín Caballero. They eliminated the visiting Díaz with five personal fouls (min.45).
Incidents: Second match of the quarterfinals of the Copa del Rey played at the Palau Municipal d'Esports in Badalona before 10,147 spectators.
