Valencia Basket 86-87 Barça Basket: Catalan derby awaits in the final | OneFootball

Barça and Valencia Basket faced off today at the Olímpic de Badalona in the Endesa Super Cup semifinals, the first title of the season. In the first semifinal, Joventut had beaten Baskonia. The green-and-blacks were waiting in tomorrow’s final.

First quarter

Both teams went for a fast pace and high intensity from the opening minute. The first period started out very even, until Barça leaned on transition play and opened up the biggest gap of the first quarter, going up by 8 (11-19). Oliver Nkamhoua stood out during this stretch of the game, scoring nine straight points. Although Barça tried to pull away, back-to-back three-pointers with less than a minute and a half left in the first quarter from Josep Puerto and TJ Shorts allowed Valencia to cut the deficit. On the last play of the period for the blaugrana, Brizuela, who returned from injury today, hit a three to make it 19-24.

Second quarter

The second period began with a 10-5 run in Valencia’s favor, tying the game at 29 before the first four minutes were up. Barça, however, tried to take advantage of the orange side’s lack of accuracy from three over the next few minutes to pull ahead on the scoreboard, though they were unable to fully do so (33-39). Valencia reacted in time and managed to get back into the game in the final two minutes of the first half. Led by Kameron Taylor, who scored 5 points in the closing minutes, the Valencia side cut the gap on the scoreboard to three points (40-43).

Third quarter

The second half began very evenly until 45-50, which came before two minutes had been played. In the space of a minute, Barça managed to go 10 points up (the biggest lead of the game), at 45-55. Valencia coach Xavi Albert called a timeout to try to turn things around. Valencia then found themselves 10 points down again (48-58) almost a minute and a half later. In the final six minutes, Valencia did manage to respond and, with a 13-8 run, made it 61-66 heading into the last quarter.

Final quarter

At the start of the quarter, Barça lost Josh Nebo to a double flagrant foul, and Valencia took advantage to move dangerously close on the scoreboard. The orange side got within three points (77-80). In the closing minutes, Barça missed the chance to put the game away with rushed shots. Xavi Albert’s team managed to put the fear into the blaugrana and tied the game at 84 with 35 seconds left. A foul by Kam Taylor in the corner with 2.8 seconds remaining gave Barça’s captain, with the score at 86-86, the chance to win the game. Kevin Punter made one of the two free throws and ultimately gave Barça an 86-87 victory. Tomorrow, there will be an all-Catalan final at the Olímpic de Badalona.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.