04 October, 2022
14 May, 2023
Bruno Fitipaldo (LNTF)
10/04/2023
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Quarter-Finals Game 2 preview: Will the defending champs close out against Manresa?

MANRESA (Spain) - The Quarter-Finals series featuring the two teams that reached last season's Basketball Champions League Final will shift over to BAXI Manresa's home court for Game 2, where the hosts will attempt to slow down defending champs Lenovo Tenerife.

Tenerife however, will want to close out the series in a two-game sweep and get back to their fourth BCL Semi-Finals.

Game 2 will tip off on Wednesday April 12 at 20:45 CET.

Tenerife grabbed the 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series thanks to outscoring Manresa 49-31 over the course of the second and third quarters. Once they took the lead, they never relinquished it again and held on the rest of the way.

 

  • During Game 1 of the Quarter-Finals, Tenerife's starting five had an average age of 34 years and 8 months, the oldest among the eight remaining teams, while Manresa had the youngest, with 26 years and 11 months. Tenerife's starting five has an accumulated experience of 291 games almost twice as much as any other team in the Quarter-Finals (Strasbourg 152, Manresa 7th with 91).

  • Manresa are on a three-game losing skid in the BCL and they have lost more games in a row only once before (four in a row between January and February 2020.; Manresa's last 10 BCL home games ended with margins of 10 or more points.

  • Manresa's Jerrick Harding scored more than 20 points in each of his last four BCL games, his longest such streak in the competition. The US guard is averaging the most points per game among all players who play fewer than 30 minutes per game (18.9 points per game in 25 minutes per game).

  • Tenerife have won 21 of their last 24 games in the BCL; however, all three of their defeats in that period happened on the road and the most recent one also came against a Spanish team (82-67 at Murcia in the Round of 16).

  • Tim Abromaitis had 11 points and 6 rebounds in Game 1, collecting more than 10 points and 5 boards in a single BCL game for the first time this season. In fact the four last BCL games in which Abromaitis recorded 10+ points and 5+ rebounds with Tenerife were all from the Quarter-Finals onwards.