fell the Granca in the last game of the preseason, in the second derby in just one week against Lenovo Tenerife 77-91. They are preparation matches, it should not be forgotten, but the feeling is one of restlessness after having lost once again, throwing a feeling of defensive weakness, precisely where the Slovenian emphasizes to build his squad.
Although the final difference was fourteen points against, Granca from the second quarter did not give any impression of being a solid team. Neither Balcerowski nor Slaughter was present and a player like Albicy still needs to match Lakovic’s needs; but in a match in which neither Shermadini nor Fran Guerra was present on the rival side, one cannot refer to the absences to justify that the Claretians were behind on the scoreboard by 25 points with four minutes to go (64-89 ).
Already the initial atmosphere in the Arena was a harbinger of what was to come in the next hour and a half of the game. An improper staging of what the first day of a team that aspires to be one of the greats of the Endesa League would deserve cannot afford to sell the game as the presentation to its fans and that in the end the atmosphere is that of a training session. It is true that a derby can influence a call effect to populate the Siete Palmas plastic with more followers than any other team would, but even so, it did not reach 2,000 people in the stands nor did the show so that those present They will warm up from before the initial jump.
And between the torpor of a Thursday afternoon the two teams jumped onto the field with all the French toast. The intensity with which the match started was that of a full-fledged friendly match. With nothing at stake, only those aspiring to make a hole in the rotation were the ones who put the most effort into it from the first plays.
In this way, Jovan Kljajic, who wants to convince Jaka Lakovic that he can be a more than valid asset for the squad, without having to settle for being the team’s 12th or 13th player while waiting for injuries or opportunities in clashes of the Eurocup.
The Slovenian coach warned that when the internationals arrived, Jovan would have “few opportunities” to continue being part of the first team, but with performances like the one perpetrated against Lenovo and together with those of the entire preseason, he is well deserving of winning the departure to other colleagues with more renown.
In the first half, Jovan was the top scorer for Gran Canaria with 9 points to maintain the type at least during the first quarter, when he signed six of those figures, which was reached with 19-23 in the bright Arena.
But from then on, Gran Canaria continued with the same parsimonious dedication on the pitch, while Tenerife seemed to be in a hurry to get ready. The aurinegro team has only been able to play two preseason games, the previous one against Granca also in the Isola Cup dispute in which the Claretians won 92-90, and they have another match left on Sunday before the start of the league.
Perhaps due to this lack of time for the players to grasp the automatisms that Txus Vidorreta wants to implement in his squad, they wanted to play at a faster pace and that was when the Lagunero team began to open a gap on the scoreboard.
From maximum to maximum
Before reaching the equator, the difference in favor of Lenovo reached fourteen points (32-46), but not even Khalifa Diop’s push as soon as he returned from the locker room, with eleven points in the fourth to stay in his final fifteen, earned the Granca to cut distances.
Why? To a large extent due to the success of Jaime Fernández, one of the players for whom the Claretian entity tried to intercede during the summer despite the fact that the recent European champion with the Spanish team had done it with the Laguneros since the dispute of the previous Copa del Rey. The man from Madrid, who had not seen a basket until then, chained another eleven points to go up to the top in favor of the people from Tenerife.
In this way, at the end of the third quarter the match was practically finished with 55-79 after Cook closed the period with a mate to hang on the walls of future players who want to emulate the products of La Vega de San José, who in the end were the ones who showed their faces in the game. Jovan Kljajic and Khalifa Diop, waiting for Olek Balcerowski to be ready after his tour of the Eurobasket.
The last quarter was a toast to the sun, in which the public even began to parade towards their homes, preferring not to get angry with the image that Granca was giving on the track. Of those who stayed, some of them even whistled when Marcelinho Huertas stole two offensive rebounds from them against the undaunted Claretian defense.
Finally, the clash was closed with the remaining players to play at least one second. Rubén López de la Torre or Aitor Etxeguren, on the Claretian side; and Sergio Rodríguez and Nico Richotti, who arrived in Tenerife for the preseason and it may be his last game as aurinegro on his return home.
