By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
There’s still a second leg left but Valencia has made a good start in the Eurocup finals by beating Unics Kazan 80-67. It was a dream night for the hosts and specially for their leader, Justin Doellman (28p with 10/16 shots) till the last 7 minutes of the game. Unics come back with a 23-6 run at the last minutes thanks to Veremeenko and its bench and everything will be decided at Russia next week.
The Spaniards started the game furiously, getting a 27-12 lead after the first quarter and the situation got even worst for the Russians before the half time, as Valencia had a lead 49-27 after 20 minutes of action. Unics allowed just 64.4 points per game to their opponents during this Eurocup season, but couldn’t stop the hosts who had 7/12 three pointers in the first half.
The absence of injured Greek forward Kostas Kaimakoglou is not a good enough excuse for the performance of Unics, which tried to turn things around and finally did it in the end, despite trailing by 33 points (70-37) at the 27th minute. The title will be decided after the second final, which will be held on the 7th of May, however the advantage of Valencia is already great.
As winning coach Velimir Perasovic said: “I think it is a good result for us in general terms. Of course, we left with a bitter taste because we would have liked to keep a bigger lead. I give our opponent a lot of credit for their rally. The team had a great game, dominating it for three quarters, but in the last six minutes we lacked strength and concentration, rushed our shots and stopped playing defense”. Valencia’s guard Pau Ribas added: “We ran out of gas! We are a team whose biggest skills are speed and aggressiveness at both ends. It was hard for us to stay focused. If we were able to run like this and stay focused, we wouldn’t be here”.
The come back is reason for hope, as Unics’ guard Nikos Zisis said: “We knew Valencia could do this to us; this was exactly what we were afraid of and what we wanted to avoid. Still, we had a great fourth quarter. I’m proud of our guys because any other team here losing by 30 would probably end up losing by 40”. Coach Trinchieri added: “When we were down by 32, I was thinking that my team, after the way we played all season, we didn’t deserve this. And I asked them to have a great fourth quarter. We had a 1% chance, but we managed to survive”.