La Laguna (Tenerife) (EFE).- For the fourth time in its history, Lenovo Tenerife will be present in the Final Four of the Champions League, defeating Baxi Manresa 84-72 this Wednesday in the third and final game quarterfinals of this European competition. Their rivals for the title will be Unicaja, Telekom Bonn and Hapoel Jerusalem.
Good meeting for the people of Tenerife who dominated a rival not as successful as on other occasions, but who did put up a “war” until the last moments. The successful performance of the two point guards from Lenovo Tenerife –Marcelinho Huertas and Bruno Fitipaldo- was decisive in achieving, once again, the dream of continuing to fight for the FIBA Champions League title.
The Lenovo Tenerife that was 7-0 to start and forced Pedro Martínez, coach of Baxi Manresa, to request his first time-out very soon (7-0, min.2).
Dani Pérez, point guard for the Catalan team, came to the rescue of his team and with five consecutive points (7-5, min.4) stopped that small advantage that the Tenerife team had taken on the scoreboard.
The insular team was better positioned on the field and in this first part they managed to manage the match well and every time Manresa approached in the net, a local player always appeared to put the advantage back in the net. First Leandro Bolmaro who with a triple made it 10-5, then Tim Abromaitis to make it 17-9 and Sastre for 20-14.
It seemed that the first quarter would end with that six-point advantage, but two errors by the locals and two visiting baskets meant that the game reached the first break with the score 20-18.
More of the same in the second quarter. Eight points in a row from Fitipaldo allowed Lenovo Tenerife to go back to seven points (27-20), but the visitors recovered and kept up with good actions from Dani Pérez, Waczynski and Geben on the rebound.
The match was leveled again in the final stretch of the second quarter (35-31, min.18), but several important actions by the people of Tenerife in defense and success in attack led them to go into the break with a nine-point advantage (45 -36).
Once again, the aurinegro team had a good start after the break and would soon reach their maximum advantage up to that moment (53-40 and 62-46), some differences that seemed to give them a certain peace of mind, especially since Baxi Manresa could not find the formula to turn the game around. Pedro Martínez’s men lacked a greater contribution and involvement from Badio and Harding, very well watched by the locals.
The third quarter ended with the aurinegra advantage by ten points (64-54), but there were ten minutes left to play. Abromaitis, always very safe from the corner, raised the score to 67-54 (71-59).
The time came for Robinson who put the team behind him to score eleven almost consecutive points and keep his team always in the match (78-70, min 37), but Tenerife had another important leader in Bruno Fitipaldo and with His shots and hits stopped any kind of approach from the rival on the scoreboard. The Uruguayan scored ten key points in the last quarter.
One of his triples was the one that ended up deciding the tie since with 78-70 and three minutes to play, a basket by Fitipaldo meant that the advantage went up to eleven points (81-70) and made it very difficult for the rival to get back into the clash.
In the end, 84-72 for the people of Tenerife in a good game, but not as good as the previous three between these two formations. The players trained by Txus Vidorreta will fight for a new title.
Datasheet:
84 – Lenovo Tenerife (20+25+19+20). Huertas (16), Bolmaro (6), Cook (4), Doornekamp (9), Shermadini (8) – initial-, Fitipaldo (22), Abromaitis (8), Fernandez (-), Guerra (4), Diagne (4). -) and Rodriguez (-) and Tailor (7).
72 – Baxi Manresa (18+18+18+18). Pérez (11), Harding (6), Robinson (14), Sagnia (-), Olumuyiwa (2) -initial-, Badio (4), Waczynski (12), Jou (6), Steinberg (2), Ferrari ( -), Vaulet (11) and Geben (4).
Referees: Rosso (FRA), Mazzoni (ITA) and Krejic (ESL). They indicated technique to the bench of Lenovo Tenerife (min.30) and to the coach of Baxi Manresa, Pedro Martínez (min.30).
Incidents: Third and final game of the quarterfinals of the FIBA Champions League, played in the Santiago Martín Sports Pavilion, before five thousand people. EFE