The appearance of French Thomas Heurtel and Rudy Fernández in the second half, after not having participated in the first, allowed Real Madrid to take off in his visit to a tough but weakened Valencia Basket and achieve an offensive fluidity with which he achieved a more comfortable victory than usual. augured after a matched first part.
Without apparent damage after having suffered on the Olympiacos court, on Friday, the first defeat of the year, Madrid started with a fluid and coral attack that the local defense did not know how to muddy. But the generation capacity of Martin Hermannsson allowed Valencia first to get hooked on the match and, later, when the Icelander began to feed the open triples of his centers, recover a small disadvantage and get ahead (16-15, m.7).
The rotation began Pablo Laso and Sergio Llull assumed the offensive leadership of his team, which calmed Madrid but not much efficiency due to the defensive improvement of the locals. Valencia found in Louis Labeyrie and, above all, in Jasiel Rivero two unexpected references in defense and attack, which allowed him to keep the match tied (36-36, m.17).
A triplazo of Llull almost on the horn of a possession gave a last impulse to Madrid to dominate the last two minutes of the first and to achieve, with a meritorious basket of Guerschon Yabuselle reach the break with a small advantage (39-42, m.20).
Laso bet at the beginning of the third quarter for Heurtel and Rudy Fernández, unpublished in the first part, and it worked for him. The Frenchman gave his team’s attack more fluidity and the Majorcan aim from the 6’75 line. With these weapons, the visitors consolidated and expanded their advantage despite the fact that Valencia refused to disengage, again thanks to Hermannsson (55-61, m.29).
But the beginning of the last quarter, another triple by Rudy Fernández and a couple of actions by Heurtel gave Madrid a second boost, which also tightened on defense and reminded Valencia of the lack of offensive arguments that it manages with the injuries to Sam Van Rossom, Klemen Prepelic and Mike Tobey (60-73, m.32).
A new triple from Rudy (who was right in four of his six attempts) sent Valencia to the canvas who felt unable to continue stopping his rival and who had to be content with Hermannsson minimizing the effect of the three-point gale with which Madrid closed the shock.
Datasheet:
79.- Valencia Basket (23+16+21+19): Hermannsson (20), Puerto (4), Claver (7), Pradilla (4), Dubljevic (6) -five starters- Dimitrijevic (12), López-Arostegui (3), Labeyrie (8), Ferrando (-), Bressan (-), Jiménez (-) and Rivero (15).
93.- Real Madrid (20 + 22 + 22 + 29): Williams-Goss (7), Abalde (9), Taylor (4), Yabuselle (11), Tavares (10) -five starters- Heurtel (11), Rudy Fernández (12), Hanga (5), Vukcevic (5) , Alocén (2), Poirier (7) and Llull (10).
Referees: Pérez Pizarro, Castillo and Olivares. Without eliminated.
Incidents: match corresponding to the fifth day of the regular phase of the Endesa League played at the Fuente de San Luis pavilion before 6,300 spectators, almost 80% of the capacity, which is the maximum allowed by sanitary restrictions.
.
