Bilbao Basket – Joventut Badalona: the battle for the last place of the group A
The Spanish Final Phase has just begun 2 days ago with a couple of teams already impressing with their demonstration of power like Baskonia, Real Madrid and the hosts, Valencia Basket. On the other side are the clubs affected by the changes made during the break, when they have lost some key players. `
Today, the first game will oppose 2 squads with short quality rotation: Bilbao Basket and Joventut Badalona, teams that are complete outsiders of the tournament due to their missing players. Their battle will be actually the game to avoid the last place of the group, where the other actors involved are Baskonia, FC Barcelona, Iberostar Tenerife and Unicaja Malaga. These 4 teams are fighting for the 2 spots that are going to the Liga ACB Semifinals.
But why do we should consider Bilbao Basket and Joventut Badalona as outsiders of the group A? Just because they have lost the first round? Not at all! Joventut actually made a great game fighting FC Barcelona till the end, losing with only 4 points and being am impressing score machine. Bilbao started very well the game Baskonia and maintained the hope till the first minutes of the 3 quarter when they started to be slaughtered by the Euroleague powerhouse.
The real problem for both teams is their bench, full with role-players, some of them very young that are seeing now much more minutes than the whole season. Badalona came to the Final tournament with 7 youngsters in the roster and only 5 experienced players. From those, the sharpshooter Klemen Prepelic didn’t play the first game against FC Barcelona. Maybe he will do it today which is giving more chances to Joventut.
On the other side, Bilbao is very affected by the injuries, Jaylon Brown, Arnoldas Kubolka and Quentin Serron being not able to enter the game. Because of this, Bilbao Basket is far from what they showed us during the season when the Basques were occupying the 5th place in Liga ACB. Probably back then, Bilbao Basket would have the first chance to win this game. Now, even with the extra motivation that coach Alex Mumbru is trying to give to his players, it will be more difficult.
Image: Bilbao Basket Twitter
Gratian Cormos
