Spanish
Valencia, June 19 (EFE).- Valencia Basket visits Real Madrid this Friday in the first match of the Endesa League final, with the idea of exploiting the high pace of play that it has shown this season to exhaust its rival and take a victory that will turn the home advantage around.
Real Madrid's best ranking in the regular season, first, means that the series will open with two games, Friday and Sunday, at the Movistar Arena, where the Madrid team has remained undefeated for 14 months. La Fonteta, from which Valencia says goodbye this season to move to the Roig Arena, will be the venue for the third on Wednesday and a fourth on Friday if necessary. If there were a fifth match, it would be again in the Madrid team's stronghold.
Pedro Martínez's team also expects to face the match more rested than Chus Mateo's team, after having finished their semi-final against La Laguna Tenerife last Saturday via the fast track and having their rival having to resort to a fourth match against Unicaja this Tuesday to access the final round.
But to carry out their plan, Valencia needs their outside line to 'bite' as they have done in the first two rounds and overcome their physical inferiority under the hoop to control the rebound, two preliminary steps to be able to play a fast basketball that feeds largely on three-point shots.
So far, in the two matches that both teams have played this season, the home team has won. In December, the Valencians prevailed in the final sprint, with a 14-5 run in the last three minutes that allowed them to seal a close 85-84 with a final three-pointer by Matt Costello.
Just six weeks ago, Real Madrid won on their court by 96-89, a match after which Valencia has not lost again. Although the distance was not much, the whites dominated the match almost from start to finish and a good third quarter by Andrés Feliz, definitively tipped the balance of the match.
For this match, Pedro Martínez will keep Ethan Happ out and will recover Xabi López-Arostegui, who was out in the last match against Tenerife due to a blow to his right calf. With the Spanish international recovered, the coach will have to make two discards, which in the last match in which he had to do them were Amida Brimah and Stefan Jovic.
With last Saturday's victory against Tenerife, the Catalan coach equaled Miki Vukovic with 143 victories as the coach who has won the most official matches with Valencia, so with the next victory he achieves he will hold that honor alone.
