The best Real Madrid of the year sweats and defeats the brave Unicaja, while there is a cyclone in Valencia.

The ACB semifinals are progressing well. At a pace of one game a day, if you blink, you'll miss it . And the spectacle is worth paying attention to. The new round of duels offered one uneven match and another of extreme intensity: while the Clockwork Orange was firing on all cylinders, in the Kingdom's capital, the deceptive result didn't begin to emerge until the final minutes.

Valencia knew how to impose the energy of its choral squad . Vidorreta started off by surprising, leaving Kramer out, with Morin in the post and Shermadini on the bench. With a strategy of shifting defenses and the success of Scrubb, they began controlling the game and leading (0-5) despite some errors. It took 3:30 to score, with Montero's first triple , followed by two free throws. And the Tenerife team closed the scoring , another three minutes to 11-5 and the subsequent torture of drop-by-drop left the first quarter at 23-10, which could have been worse.

The continuation began as a festival of three-pointers that started with Sestina and Fitipaldo, although later Costa, Ojeleye and Larrea joined the party… La Laguna could not withstand the orange intensity and ended up giving in: 55-35 at halftime and the orange colour of the final victory was already on the horizon .

Because the second half was more of the same. The Canary Islands team won the third quarter, but the sledgehammer returned in the final quarter , where they reached 30 points. And that was despite Sastre launching a three-pointer that would have put La Laguna down 13 with eight minutes left. But the answer to his miss was a barrage of three-pointers from Pradilla and Jones that left the score at +23 with seven minutes left and the black and golds buckling.

It's not just that Montero is brilliant at the helm , but that the energetic rotation proposed by Pedro Martínez is a nightmare for his opponents. His defensive intensity, dominance on the boards (46 rebounds is outrageous), few turnovers, and powerful outside shooting have provided an insurmountable barrier for Txus Vidorreta's team. Incidentally, it seems that the Dominican will remain in Valencia for a while, which is great news for them and for the competition.

On Saturday, the tie moves to Santiago Martín in La Laguna. Given the current situation, there's a clear favorite , but Vidorreta's fine team could scrape something home. However, his squad, brilliant all year, is also veteran, and this pace of matches could be detrimental.

Train crash at the Goya Palace

And what a train! Madrid arrives in its best form of the year , with a formidable defense, speed, and fine outside shooting. Unicaja appears to maintain its season-long efficiency, with fourteen interchangeable points and the result of having eliminated Barcelona, ​​overcoming an early defeat.

The second game was decided with just three minutes left. At that moment, Tyson Pérez sank a three-pointer to make it 77-71 , leaving nothing to be done. Then Facu Campazzo appeared, playing a superb game, but with a final epiphany, scoring nine points with two three-pointers, one of them extraordinary, and Unicaja had to sign the truce , 90-75 in the blink of an eye.

But before that, the match lived up to expectations . It was nothing like the first game of the series, where Madrid's energy put them at bay from the start against a seemingly fatigued Unicaja side.

From the start, Ibon Navarro once again modified his starting lineup, adding Johnny Barreiro and Tyson Pérez. Chus Mateo continued his recent form of power inside (Abalde, Mario, Eli, Tavares). For two minutes, all the energy on the court dissipated into the air : zero points between the two. Once the hoop was opened, three-pointers from Perry and Taylor gave the Malaga team their first lead (1-6), which they would hold for some time. With voracious defenses on both hoops, the trickle of points foreshadowed a dead heat that Friday night in the capital.

Sergio Llull gave Madrid its first lead with one minute left (18-17) and confirmed it with a couple of free throws and a stratospheric tangerine , a trademark of his , which must already be a registered trademark , to make it 23-19, which suggested the following thought: despite the colossal defenses and errors, the pace of the game allowed them to reach the 23-point mark at the end of the first quarter. It was great basketball.

In short, the second quarter continued as it had begun. Unicaja's strong start saw them erase a small initial deficit for Real Madrid and even regain a slight initiative. Then, an unsportsmanlike foul on Kalinoski and a subsequent turnover by the American, followed by an excellent three-pointer by Abalde, gave Madrid a +7 lead again in a flash . Once again, Unicaja healed the wound , and the subsequent succession of fouls, bonus-time free throws, and various turnovers closed the quarter at 46-41, and they were ready to rest.

For the second half, Mateo returned to his starting five, and Navarro continued to move his roster . But Unicaja didn't find the basket for four minutes, so Madrid opened the scoring (55-41) . When Carter finally scored a three-pointer, Abalde responded with another fourteen seconds later: the duel seemed to be pending only on the signing of the document. Tavares ' hook, a Hezonja-style three-pointer, made it 63-44 with fourteen minutes left . Bad luck for Unicaja, because the Madrid defense didn't give an inch.

But the Andalusian team kept on fighting . Every free throw, every rebound, every basket was a struggle, and a final dunk by Yankuba Sima left the scoreboard at 67-58, so it wasn't time to go to the notary just yet, sending the fight into the final quarter, with everything still to be decided. However, Madrid was nine points ahead.

And indeed: three turnovers, a few shooting errors, and Perry's entry into the game with five straight points, made it 67-63 , and Unicaja even got closer, already within striking distance of a three-pointer . Fear erupted at the Palacio. But it was Usman Garuba who sank one from the edge of the box , followed by another from Mario, opening the score to +9 again. Then Campazzo arrived, bringing ecstasy to one hemisphere and silence to the other . Not many thought they would see the Córdoba native in such physical form again: he's outstanding.

Ibon Navarro was sent off for a double technical . His irritation, which was visually striking, had been brewing since the first quarter, due to a series of refereeing decisions, especially the technical decision on Balcerowski for a gesture following a clear foul by Tavares, which was not called. The undersigned has been watching basketball for about forty years and still often fails to understand the criteria referees use, although human error is always possible.

It's true that there has been much improvement in the context of refereeing , once authoritarian, now much more conciliatory. That's why it's sometimes hard to understand what leads to the decision to award a technical foul for a simple gesture, or what fine line separates a normal gesture from one worthy of a technical foul . There are objective cases: you can't touch the ball after scoring. But gestures are just as subjective, like how this Friday a player's frustration, for walking to his own bench, was also punished with a technical foul. No, it's definitely hard to understand why angry attitudes from the bench are sometimes tolerated and other times punished for no apparent reason.

And I could go on about this subject: three-point shooting from the center of the court, contacts in man-to-man defense, positioning on screens, or fighting for rebounds. It varies so much from game to game, from one refereeing team to another, that each game is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're going to get . That's a topic for another day.

In short, Madrid won all four quarters, with a shooting rate that would have been their best in the Euroleague this year, and with a defensive consistency that is even their greatest asset. They have the tie in their favor and will try to settle it in Málaga.

For Unicaja, the semifinal has become a long and steep climb, if they can win it, which is unlikely but still possible. In a year of success, with an excellent squad where everyone counts, they had to face Barcelona and Madrid in the finals . The third round is on Sunday.