Prolonging your good form can bring you significant returns. This afternoon, La Laguna Tenerife is looking for what would be its seventh consecutive victory, a figure that would put it with an unbeatable 3-0 in the first phase of the Basketball Champions League. All at the expense of Turkish Tofas Bursa, the other team that remains undefeated in group D after the first two days. Theoretical privileged situation that the islanders can achieve in pursuit of their goal of directly accessing the Round of 16, also based on the fact that two of the three remaining duels will take place at the Santiago Martín.
Despite his undeniable great moment of form, and his scoring ability – he averages 97.16 points in his six duels between ACB and BCL –, the Canary Islands will have to refine a lot today to not see their positive series broken. And the Aurinegros face another rival that has also made clear its offensive prolixity in the first two dates of the continental tournament: 90.5 points on average. The Ottoman team does this especially thanks to a basketball that in terms of style and effectiveness barely differs from that promulgated by the aurinegra squad.
Thus, Tofas is the team that distributes the most assists in this BCL (27.5 on average), and the one that presents the best field goal shooting (54.8% compared to the Canary Islands’ 54.1%), while it is third in triples (45.5%), a facet in which the island squad is most accurate: 47.4%, also with the ease of converting 13.5 on average. At an individual level, and beyond the outside contribution – from the perimeter and especially thanks to its verticality – of Joe Thomasson – formerly of Granca – and Hugo Besson, the La Laguna team will have to tie Marek Blazevic at short notice.
The Lithuanian is a much more accomplished center than the one who played for Obradoiro a couple of seasons ago. Cooking that places him for now as the MVP of the BCL (27 credits on average) thanks to his 24 points (top scorer and 16/21 in shots from two) and nine rebounds per game. It is also the second most valued in the Turkish league: 23.7 grade. In the distribution of the game, between the Mexican point guard Alex Pérez and the forward Tolga Gecim they average 17 assists per game. Main forces for Tofas to beat Bnei Herzliya at home and also at Trapani, against whom they were 21 up despite ending up winning by just two points.
In its intention to continue its good results and the great moment of form that players like Shermadini, Huertas and Fernández are going through, as well as the contributions of other basketball players like Guerra, Giedraitis and Sastre – today he must be key against Thomasson, like Fitipaldo –, CB Canarias will also have to deal with a grueling trip almost identical to the one they already made to visit the Trapani: travel one day after playing at Santiago Martín, night in Barcelona, another flight to the destination country and road to the city where the duel will be played. It will be at Tofas Spor Salonu, where the gold and silver squad already fell just a year and a half ago (90-81). It’s time to settle that small account. n
Dylan completes the expedition
After arriving in Bursa in the middle of the afternoon – Turkey is three hours ahead of the Canary Islands – the Canary Islands trained at the venue of the match, a Tofas Spor Salonu that will be full today. The Canarista expedition has 13 players, since Dylan Bordón also traveled to cover his back in the face of quotas.
For Thomas Scrubb “beating the other undefeated team would be very important for the leadership and to gain confidence.” “We will have to match their energy and play as we usually do, without many mistakes and making open shots,” added the Canadian, who praised “the great role” of Blazevic, with whom he coincided for two years at the Obradoiro.
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