Betting that Unicaja Banco Oviedo Baloncesto was going to lose both games of the week against Girona and Lleida, taking into account the circumstances, was not going to make anyone rich. Without Jorgensen or Atencia, disqualified from playing for not being registered when the matches should have been held, and with the added absence of Jeff Xavier, injured, the OCB is an erratic team with an evident lack of outside quality and rotation. But yesterday’s defeat had little to do with Wednesday’s massive setback in Pumarín. At Barris Nord, Lezkano’s men gave a defense clinic at times, which allowed them to dominate for three quarters. In the last period, the locals cut off the oxygen arrival routes and the OCB drowned, but found arguments for hope, which is to integrate the new ones taking advantage of the imminent stoppage of the FIBA window.
The inclusion of Jeff Xavier in the displacement, and his presence dressed in shorts on the track from Lleida, invited us to think that he would participate, even if it was for a limited time. Natxo Lezkano preferred not to take risks and did not use the Cape Verdean, using the same rotation as on Wednesday: Meana and Fernando Suárez as point guards, Lobaco, Kamba and Bartolomé completing the outside game; McDonnell and Elechi in the four and Kabasele and Arteaga alternating in the post.
From the beginning it could be seen that the OCB had made an amendment purpose. If there are not too many arguments on the opposing half court, at least you have to protect your own basket. Lezkano had it clear, and he made it even clearer by changing Bartolomé after three minutes due to his laziness against Schreiner. The message got through, and the nine players did a great job. They went to contact, they understood the help well, which clouded Michael Carrera, candidate for best player in the Gold, and they were brave. And they had the best version of Kabasele, who was very intimidating.
The attack was another matter. Orphan of its most creative players, the OCB worked in fits and starts, supported by the initial success of Alonso Meana and Lobaco and sparks from Kamba, Elechi and Fernando Suárez, the EBA player who has responded with personality to the challenge of throwing a cable in the second category of Spanish basketball. With these wickers, and with McDonnell again in the “Gladiator” style, the Asturian basket looked good at times: 4-10, 16-24, 25-32… But in the last play of the first half, Lleida gave a warning of what was to come at the end. He returned from the timeout with full-court pressure, fell back in a very active zone and Oviedo consumed possession without even shooting for the basket. At rest, 27-32.
The local exit was feared in the third quarter, and so it happened. With Hughes taking charge of the attack and Carrera waking up, Lleida got their first lead. The ocebeísta defense parried the blow, with a masterful Kabasele, to return the match to the course of the first half. But what was a reaction was also a missed opportunity. With Lleida disconcerted, Lezkano’s men missed multiple counters and free kicks with which they would have opened a serious gap. Despite everything, his was the initiative at the beginning of the last quarter (38-44).
The final stretch began in a promising way, with a brave entry to the basket by Fernando Suárez that placed the maximum visitor advantage in the electronic (38-46). The swan song. Lleida increased the pressure and OCB ran out of air or fresh legs to withstand the last attack. Between the basket after Bartolomé’s offensive rebound for 45-48 and Arteaga’s hook that made it 59-50, seven eternal minutes passed with the team from Oviedo unable to score a sad point and trapped in a self-destruction loop: their constant errors in attack prevented him from positioning his defense, acting as a launch pad for local actions, and, in the opposite direction, Lleida’s fluid scoring delayed his offense a lot, making it an easier prey. Anxiety did the rest. They were painful minutes, especially for the honorable Meana, turned into a machine for losing balls, and for Kamba, in fairground shotgun mode. At least in this defeat there is something to hold on to.
defeat of the EBA. The subsidiary, for its part, reaped a new defeat in Pumarín, against CB La Flecha (70-74), in a match in which it suffered the tremendous partial against the second quarter.
Lundqvist, the next reinforcement
Lunqvist, a 2.01 meter Swedish shooting guard who plays for Palma, is close to becoming the third reinforcement of the winter market for Unicaja Banco Oviedo Baloncesto. The player, an under-20 international for the Nordic country, has averaged 11 points and 4 rebounds per game this season, although the Balearic club is off the hook in the relegation places to LEB Plata. The maneuver of the player’s agent, the same one that leads Natxo Lezkano, OCB coach, has sat like a shot at the Balearic club. Álex Pérez, Palma coach, exploded against the player after the game he lost yesterday against Cáceres, in extra time. “He has been injured for two years and we have been working with him. Now that he’s fine, he’s leaving us”, pointed out the coach while announcing the agreement between Lunqvist and Oviedo. The operation is not completely closed, but everything indicates that the Swede will be the third Asturian signing after those of Paul Jorgensen and Hansel Atencia.
Natxo Lezkano, coach of Unicaja Banco Oviedo: “We were running low on gasoline, the start of the last quarter condemned us”
The coach of Unicaja Banco Oviedo, Natxo Lezkano, confessed his satisfaction with the match played by his team, despite the sting of the defeat. “In the first three quarters we have taken the game where we wanted, even without being successful and missing free throws, layups, with some absurd losses… The level of intensity and concentration has been good. The start of the last quarter condemned us, we were just short on fuel, fouls, with no rotations… that penalized us, although the difference was bigger than the game was”.
