Barça destroyed Unicaja Malaga in the last quarter
It had to be a very balanced game in Palau Blaugrana for many reasons:
- the host team played a double-round in the Euroleague this week and they had to be more tired than Unicaja Malaga
- the visitors had only one game this week, at PAOK, in the Basketball Champions League, so they had much more time to recover and prepare for the game against Barça
- FC Barcelona was without Cory Higgins and Sertac Sanli for this game, while Unicaja had the entire roster available
The encounter was very defensive and FC Barcelona controlled the first part of the game thanks to many errors and missing shots of the visitors. In the 3dr quarter, we saw a different Unicaja Malaga and it seemed the visitors could steal the win. But Barça was always there with a solid response and didn’t let Malaga increase the margin. What happened in the last quarter is the result of many factors: the maturity of FC Barcelona’s players who could manage the final stanza with cold blood, the lack of mental control of Unicaja who received 3 technical fouls in a couple of minutes and finally the lack of precision of the visitors, who missed too many shots.
FC Barcelona finished the game with a huge margin of 75-60, but I am sure that Unicaja Malaga is still a great team and they can play better than that! In spite of this loss, they have a good path this season in Liga Endesa and in the Basketball Champions League, where they should reach the Final 4.
The article was written by Gratian Cormos, a Romanian journalist, book writer, life coach and mentor currently living in Barcelona, Spain.
If you are interested in collaborating with his website brainbasketball.net, in order to publish articles, interviews or other features related to basketball, feel free to contact Gratian Cormos by Whatsapp or Telegram at this Spanish number: +34 612414486
Photo credit: FC Barcelona
