ATHENS (Greece) - FIBA Intercontinental Cup, Spanish Supercopa, Copa del Rey, and now back-to-back BCL Champions. After defeating Galatasaray 83-67 in the Final, Unicaja have done it again.
Let's dive in and have a closer look at how they did it.
Defense Wins Championships
For all the talk of Unicaja's mighty offense, Ibon Navarro has always maintained that the culture they have built in Malaga is a culture of defense. And the foundation of that defense has always been, and likely always will be, the one and only Alberto Diaz.
Unicaja drew four offensive fouls in the first half, three of them exclusively from the defensive genius of Alberto Diaz. Genius is a word that gets thrown around too liberally in sport, but Diaz really does have a savant-like instinct for taking charges.
In the first clip of that video above, a long rebound to James Palmer Jr looked like an easy two-points in transition for Gala, but no layup is safe with Diaz on the floor, as he read the drive middle and took the charge.
And even more crucially, drew Palmer's second foul, sending him to the bench.
The second clip sees Dylan Osetkowski switched onto Will Cummings defensively. Diaz waits and waits until the last moment, understanding that Cummings will be too quick for his teammate, but also understanding that he couldn't go too early.
That foul on Cummings was also pivotal when he had to sit with four fouls in the third quarter.
Galatasaray head coach, Yakup Sekizkok, spoke about the impact of those offensive fouls and in particular his sub rotations with Palmer Jr and Cummings.
"The impact was huge," he said. "In the Final, stars have to play the game. I believe all of them were correct calls, but this is basketball; it's a contact sport."
Speaking of Osetkowski switching, the German international may not be as known for his defense, but with Unicaja switching a high volume of ball screens, he was called to defend guards regularly and especially in the first quarter, he came up trumps.
Galatasaray played better than a 16-point loss
16 points is the biggest winning margin ever in the BCL but for 35 minutes of this game, Gala were a much better team than that and forced Unicaja to use the full strength of their roster to even win this game, let alone blow it out.
Roberts Blumbergs came off the bench and produced a season-high 14 points on 71.4 percent shooting.
In the clip above we see Gala doing some switching of their own. Blumbergs switches onto Kendrick Perry, contests the shot, sprints the floor, and throws down the huge alley-oop to tie the game.
Will Cummings also had 14 points in the game and had it not been for those four fouls in the third quarter, it would likely have been much more.
In that clip above, Cummings hit a deep three to cut the lead to just 3 points in the third quarter. Notice that Blumbergs set the screen and with Osetkowski now concerned by him popping or rolling from the screen, he doesn't switch or hedge, instead staying close to Blumbergs.
This forced Perry to help off the nail, one pass away, leaving Cummings open.
Unicaja are the best team we have ever seen in the BCL
At this point, I don't think this statement is especially controversial.
They hold the record for the most games undefeated at 18, which they set this season. They have now become the second team to go back-to-back, and they end this campaign with the highest Net Rating ever in the BCL.
They were +23 points per 100 possessions better than their opponents this season, a number never achieved by any other team.
When you factor in the fact that this team has already won the FIBA Intercontinental Cup, Spanish Supercopa, and the Copa del Rey, this season (!) this BCL title now gives them a historic quadruple. And they still have the Liga Endesa Play-Offs to come...
But more than anything, Ibon Navarro's team are the best because of the quality and depth across their roster, combined with the selflessness of elite-level players to accept slightly reduced individual roles in order to win.
Unicaja head coach, Ibon Navarro spoke about this specifically in the post game press conference, he said:
"One of the secrets of this team is that we are 14 or 15 players and only 12 of them can play in the game. There are players on this team who, if they played 25 or 30 minutes on another team they could have bigger numbers but they sacrifice that in order to win."
Tyson Carter was correctly given the Final Four MVP, but the award could have gone to almost anyone on the roster. From Perry to Osetkowski, or even Tyson Perez, who really stamped his authority on this BCL Final Four, powered by SUNEL, on both ends of the floor.
Yakup Sekizkok spoke about the impact of Unicaja's 14 offensive rebounds and second chance points on the outcome of the game.
"We gave up too many second-chance points in the second half, and that blew out our resistance," he stated.
Tyson Perez was a crucial factor in the Semi-Final with his offensive rebounds and putbacks. In the Final, he had 13 points and 11 rebounds, with four of those being on the offensive glass.
Perhaps his biggest play of the weekend was saved for the fourth quarter in this Final.
Ibon Navarro, however, reserved the final and most powerful praise for Tyler Kalinoski who nailed two clutch three-pointers to seal the deal in the last three minutes of the game.
The last one followed by Steph Curry's Night Night celebration, because he knew that he'd iced the game.
"All of the things that happen in the game are important," Navarro said.
"But as coach Sakota said, there is always one moment of the game, when the momentum of the game is decided. Today, that moment was not Tyson Perez, it was not Alberto Diaz, it was Tyler Kalinoski. Those two threes in a row really broke the game."
That there are so many different candidates for MVP and Star Lineup in this team, speaks to just how special this group is.
"You have to be lucky, not with the players, but with the people. There are players that came here where we had an idea of how special they were personally and when they came here, they were better," Navarro stated.
"There is a very special chemistry in our team and that's because of how they are as people."