Minute 2 of the first final of the Uruguayan Basketball League between Biguá and Nacional. Esteba Batista cuts to the basket and scores the tricolor’s first points in the game. When he returns to his field, he says something to Biguá’s coach, the Argentine Hernán Laginestra, who, by covering his mouth, answers him. This Wednesday, at 9:15 p.m., the second chapter of the series agreed to the best of five matches will be played to define the champion of the contest. And in parallel it will continue, or not, this story that started before the start of the contest.
Leonardo Carreño
Hernán Laginestra
Biguá won the first point, 97-92, and that is in the end what matters. But despite the casualties (Marcel Souberbielle with torn knee ligaments and Santiago Moglia with a broken hand) and Devon Collier’s return to cotton after suffering covid-19, Nacional was always in the game and it can be said that he lost due to a defensive oversight when from the bench they were protesting a foul on Carlos Cabezas (which existed and was not charged).
So it is urgent for the tricolor to match the series whose third game is scheduled for Friday.
Monday’s meeting was a great game that had a couple of hot moments from each side, both with Judge Andrés Bartel. First due to a clear foul by Dominique Morrison on Hatila Passos who charged backwards and then for not noticing Victor Rudd’s foul on Cabezas. That cost each team a technical sanction (to the Biguá bank and the Spanish base).
Before, when the game just started, it happened the junction between Batista and Laginestra. They both worked together at Biguá in the preseason Although finally the pivot did not finish signing a contract and was left without a team to dispute the start of the 2021 League.
Leonardo Carreño
Batista scored 10 points and dropped 8 rebounds in the first final
Batista was announced on November 24 as a player for Biguá, a team with which he had also arranged in 2005 but which he finally did not defend because the historic possibility of playing for the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA arose.
“Welcome Esteban Batista to the club whose philosophy is #DarloTodo. Fighting up or down, always give it your all. We await you with open arms, “Biguá said on his Twitter account at the time.
However, on December 30, the player separated from Pato de Villa Biarritz.
What happened? On April 22, when he was announced as Nacional’s reinforcement to replace Jonathan Sacco, Batista told Referee: “On my part it was an excess of confidence to have started training without having signed a contract before. The decision was made by the coaching staff and it is something totally past. Things happen for a reason and today I am happy to have this opportunity and to be where I want to be. And I clarify, with the leaders of Biguá I had no problem because the relationship was always good, the coaching staff had the problem with me because I had no problem with them or with anyone “.
A month before, Laginestra was also consulted on this matter by the Basquet Total portal and limited himself to saying: “It just didn’t fit into the work plan. It is a closed subject. It didn’t surprise me and it didn’t surprise me either, it just didn’t fit into the work plan. ”
Leonardo Carreño
Batista’s first points in the first final
One day after qualifying for the final after liquidating the semifinal series against Urunday Universitario 3-1, Batista was asked what it represented to meet Laginestra again: “Playing a final against any team is already a motivation and we do not need to put a face on the rival The seasoning, the morbid is for you, I do not need more motivation than my baby with my shirt and to be able to live it with my wife and my daughter, you can put whoever it is forward that I am going to want to rip his head off. name and whatever team, but obviously without anything against the rival, the motivation I have is my own and I find it very close, at home. The morbid that is generated exists, the turns of life are like this, it will be seen “, expressed to First Basketball that it is emitted by AM 810.
As he could know Referee, in the incidence of Monday’s game, Laginestra gave a defensive indication to his team that caused Batista to yell twice as he scored and the Argentine responded.
However, everything remained at that. Later in the rest of the game nothing else happened between the actors.
This Wednesday they will see each other again. Nacional and Biguá. Batista and Laginestra. But the one that wins, with protagonists of this caliber, is basketball.
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