Baskonia fired Valencia de Vitoria with an anthology beating. Mumbrú lamented at halftime that his team had defended poorly in the first half. Well, if he didn’t want a cup, a cup and a half. The second part was worse, and the distance went to 39 points. Nobody appeared on the court, dressed in orange, to try to fix the mess. In the fight to get into the next phase, Baskonia takes advantage.
One of the recurring plans of the teams that face Baskonia usually consists of trying to blur the game of Markus Howard. It can be said that Valencia achieved it in Vitoria, because the American player went to the bench in frustration before the break, with three fouls and no points on his scoreboard. Peñarroya sat him down to prevent him from using up the quota, as in his previous Euroleague game, in which he played eleven minutes and committed five personal ones. Howard put on his sweatshirt and did not return to the court.
But at Baskonia there is a wardrobe, and although Howard did not contribute anything, his teammates did. Thompson became the mirror in which to look at himself and did not miss a single shot until the last second of the first half; Hommes was a colossus, Giedraitis maintained the regularity of the last performances, and Valencia collapsed in defense. Nobody showed up there. They kept up their game until the end of the first quarter (27-24), but little else. Only in the first moments of the game at the Buesa was Valencia Basket comfortable at the Buesa Arena, then they had to suffer. It would have helped a lot if Alex Mumbrú’s men had put a little more intensity on defense.
And the inspiration was gone at once, never to return. Harper was there but she wasn’t – she left with five fouls as the Baskonia beating began to get stratospheric; López Arostegui tried to oxygenate, but there was no way. In the first minutes of the second part we already saw what was coming. The Baskonia machine went into mincing mode. They went from 57-48 at the break to 114-75 at the end. Nine points ahead that multiplied to 39 at the end, in an overwhelming last quarter in which the people from Vitoria were capable of scoring a washing machine if that had been the case. And to all that, Markus Howard clapping with joy to his teammates who sat on the bench with the mission accomplished. 114 points scored by his team. He didn’t do any. He didn’t need it.
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