By Cesare Milanti / info@eurohoops.net
At the end of last season, when Unicaja Malaga was on the road to the Basketball Champions League Final Four played in their own home, the Martin Carpena Arena, the whole “Ibon Navarro has got a plan” scenario started to spread among the European landscape.
And despite first Telekom Baskets Bonn ruining the party to the home crowd and then Dario Brizuela leaving the van to try to make the best out of his new EuroLeague opportunity with Barcelona, the Andalusian team hasn’t stopped delivering in both European and domestic competitions.
Being the only team able to go up 3-0 alongside AEK Athens among the ones that have stepped foot on BCL courts three times since the start of the season, things are working basically perfectly for the Spanish side, eager to get its revenge in May 2024.
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Adjusting Unicaja’s rotations
How many times do you hear the necessity of certain times to find a go-to guy who can solve things up when the offense gets stuck or when the intensity arises? Well, in Malaga you could surely find some more reliable offensive sources, but the reality says Ibon Navarro created the perfect environment.
With that being said, there may be times and occasions when David Kravish and Kendrick Perry – respectively the team’s leaders in points scored (11.7) and assists shared (5.3) per game in the 2023-24 BCL – will play mostly with the ball in their hands when it gets hot, or
But it must still be noted that nobody on Unicaja‘s roster spends more than 21.9 minutes (Alberto Diaz) and less than 10.6 minutes (Jonathan Barreiro) per game. This means nothing but a good distribution of minutes and rotations by the 47-year-old coach, considering that his team may realistically fight until the end in each and every competition they’re playing in.
Being 3-0 in their Basketball Champions League Group A – after losing only two games between last year’s Regular Season and Round of 16, being 4th at the checkered flag in front of its beloved and passionate fans – automatically makes them an early contender in their third straight BCL appearance.
Moreover, it looks like they will fight to defend the Copa del Rey after their extraordinary feat in 2023, beating both Real Madrid and Barcelona – the first and only team to do so since the birth of one of the most entertaining competitions, in 1953 – to capture the domestic cup. Early to judge if they will turn the impossible into reality in the ACB League, winning their second-ever Spanish title 18 years in the making. But that 4th position at a 6-3 record means home-court advantage at the moment.
Anatomy of an unbeaten start
But how the plan has been delivered thus far? Once again, the keyword stands for “chemistry”, and that is distributing responsibilities on offense, while everybody makes the right adjustment on the defensive end. Nobody on Unicaja’s roster has scored more than 20 points (Dylan Osetkowski vs LeMans) in this BCL campaign so far, but the whole team stands 5th per offensive rating (116.67) according to ViziBall’s official advanced statistics system.
Moreover, once the Spanish team gets the lead, it basically never loses it: they’re 1st in the whole competition for time spent ahead in games, with a total of 1971.67 minutes combined, and third to last per lead changes, only 3 per game since starting the season. However, both against Falco Szombathely and LeMans Ibon Navarro’s team found some difficulties, respectively in wasting a 13-point lead and in starting the encounter down 7-0, providing a comeback straight from the beginning.
The result, in the end, was two points to add to the standings, just like against Vassilis Spanoulis’ Peristeri, the toughest opponent on paper in Group A. Leading even by 19 points (67-48 at 8:47 left in the fourth quarter), Unicaja didn’t leave any opportunities to the Greek team, forced to bad shooting selection (39.0% from two and 28.0% from three-point range). Limiting the backcourt duo composed of Joe Ragland and Jaylen Hands to a combined 1/9 from deep was the cherry on the cake.
Unicaja Malaga’s upside is well-described by what Yankuba Sima – who took down this team when representing BAXI Manresa in the 2022 BCL Quarter-Finals – said after the latest win against Basquet Girona in the ACB. “I don’t like putting a ceiling on myself and neither does the team. We are going to try to fight for all the titles and leave Malaga at the top”, he said.
The relationships this group managed to shape within two years have brought Unicaja back to the top of European basketball, representing Spain as one of the main forces in the Basketball Champions League – and not only. Ibon Navarro will keep on conducting the van, following the plan. As somebody likes to say, the job’s not finished in Malaga. It just started, unbeaten.
😎 🅚🅔🅔🅟 🅘🅣 🅡🅞🅛🅛🅘🅝’
💚💜 #YoSoyDelUnicaja #LigaEndesa pic.twitter.com/iOefrc5JTZ
— UnicajaCB (@unicajaCB) November 4, 2023
PHOTO CREDIT: Basketball Champions League