FCBARCELONA.CAT

01.06.2010 22:29

Defence takes Regal through to final (72-82)

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Regal Barca won their way through to the ACB Final with a win against Unicaja in Malaga, thanks to some solid defending, Basile’s three pointers throughout the game and Lorbek’s contribution in the final minutes.

Although Unicaja led for much of the game, Regal stormed through in the final period, showing great defence, to take the match, with Basile finishing on 20 points and Lorbek and Pete Mickeal both on 16.

Concentration

In front of a 10,000 crowd at the Martin Carpena Hall, Barca showed great concentration from the start and well aware of the importance of the game, they dominated the rebound and soon established a fine balance between their exterior and interior game.

Unicaja based their attacking game on Printezis, with Berni Rodríguez pulling the strings and taking every advantage of the few errors Barca made to keep up with the visitors and actually led by a point at the end of the first quarter.

Unicaja stretch lead

Barca found it tough to get off the mark in the second quarter and not until Boniface Ndong scored on 13 minutes did their score inch forward. Unicaja’s defence was holding firm and they were soon 7 points up, causing the Barca coach to call a time out and although the hosts increased their lead to a maximum 9 points(40-31), Basile, playing his 200th ACB game cut that down to just five points with a late three pointer.

Attack fires again

Three pointers from Navarro and Rubio, with Pete Mickeal, Vázquez and Lorbek coming into their own in attack meant that Barca drew level on 50 points with three minutes and 45 seconds left of the third quarter and a further five point flurry from Basile put Barca three points ahead with two minutes left. Unicaja came back though and took advantage of a couple of mistakes by the visitors end the quarter two points ahead.

Defence key

Halfway through the final quarter, Unicaja were still ahead, despite two three pointers from Basile which had momentarily put Barca ahead. Xavi Pascual called another time out and whatever he said seemed to do the trick as the defence tightened up and two three pointers from Lorbek opened up a six point lead going into the final minute, which proved enough to win the game and book a ticket for yet another final.