![\"Valencia](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/55347007383-8c5cc1c614-o-1781985136258.jpg\"\/)
Valencia Basket dominated Game 2 of the Spanish ACB Finals at the Roig Arena. Source: Miguel \u00c1ngel PoloThird Quarter: 75\u201352<\/p>\nAfter Bar\u00e7a drew first blood in Game 1 of the Finals, the stage was set for Game 2. The Taronja had no intention of heading to Barcelona down 0\u20132 in the series\u2014even if they proved against Panathinaikos that they\u2019re capable of climbing out of that kind of hole. This Game 2 clash at the Roig Arena was destined to be either a near-death sentence or a massive sigh of relief, depending on which way the pendulum swung.<\/p>\n
First Quarter: 26\u201311<\/p>\n
The home squad\u2019s starting five featured Jean Montero, Brancou Badio, Kam Taylor, Braxton Key, and Neal Sako. Head coach Xavi Pascual countered with Kevin Punter, Juani Marcos, Will Clyburn, Toko Shengelia, and Youssoupha Fall. The game tipped off with heavy defensive intensity\u2014a complete 180 from Game 1. Montero opened the scoring, followed by a pair of free throws from Badio. Despite the high energy, the pace was a slow, half-court grind. Three minutes in, the hosts were already up 6\u20130, prompting Bar\u00e7a to look to their bench: in came Tom\u00e1\u0161 Satoransk\u00fd and Jan Vesely. The run extended to 11\u20130 before Pascual was forced to burn a timeout.<\/p>\n
Vesely finally stopped the bleeding right out of the break. However, that illusion of Catalan defensive solidity vanished after just two stops. Bar\u00e7a eventually settled into their offense, looking sharper than their opponent but completely unable to chip away at Valencia\u2019s 11-point cushion. Even Yankuba Sima got in on the action from beyond the arc; coming off a stellar Game 1, the big man set a high bar on the defensive end while chipping in on the scoreboard. At the buzzer, Montero gave Valencia their largest lead of the frame to close the quarter: 26\u201311.<\/p>\n
Second Quarter: 45\u201338<\/p>\n
Valencia Basket refused to blink. A red-hot Badio caught fire from deep to stifle an early Blaugrana push. Pascual was growing desperate; he checked Shengelia back into the game to try and stop the hemorrhaging, as Valencia was riding a 19\u20137 run that blew the game open to 35\u201318. Bar\u00e7a was left trying to swim upstream.<\/p>\n
Nicol\u00e1s Laprovittola knocked down a triple to cut the deficit to “just” 10 points at 36\u201326 with 3:17 left in the half. Valencia head coach Pedro Mart\u00ednez called for time at the 2:30 mark; the Shengelia sub had worked magic, bringing Bar\u00e7a back within six at 37\u201331. With 44 seconds remaining, the undisputed main character of the series, Laprovittola, made it a five-point game: 43\u201338. The teams headed to the locker rooms at the half with the scoreboard reading 45\u201338.<\/p>\n
Valencia Basket dominated Game 2 of the Spanish ACB Finals at the Roig Arena. Source: Miguel \u00c1ngel PoloThird Quarter: 75\u201352<\/p>\n
Key opened the second-half scoring, coming out of the locker room with noticeably more juice than anyone else on the floor. The halftime break did Bar\u00e7a no favors; an “and-one” from Montero quickly stretched the lead to 50\u201338. After enduring a two-and-a-half-minute scoring drought, Bar\u00e7a finally got back on the board courtesy of Shengelia. Even so, Sergio de Larrea kept twisting the knife, forcing Pascual to call yet another timeout down 55\u201340 just three minutes into the quarter. Key drilled another three, and Bar\u00e7a looked completely out on their feet.<\/p>\n
Dar\u00edo Brizuela tried to spark something from long range to get the deficit back under 20, but to no avail. The hosts were putting on an absolute clinic, keeping their foot on the gas right up to the third-quarter horn: 75\u201352. You could already feel the party starting in the Roig Arena stands. Barring a historic collapse, this Finals series was guaranteed to see at least two more games.<\/p>\n
Fourth Quarter: 102\u201375<\/p>\n
Bar\u00e7a was in total disarray. They were turning the ball over left and right, their body language was brutal, and Valencia Basket was feasting in transition, flirting with a 30-point blowout. The final stretch devolved into a wide-open track meet\u2014pure garbage time for both squads. Highlighted by an ejection for Kevin Punter, the game wrapped up as a 102\u201375 runaway home victory, tying the Finals up at one game apiece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Bar\u00e7a drew first blood in Game 1 of the Finals, the stage was set for Game 2.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5321,19892,18159,223,19891,18012,95,103],"class_list":["post-43577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-valencia","tag-acb","tag-barcelona-basket","tag-braxton-key","tag-fc-barcelona","tag-sergio-de-larrea","tag-spanish-basketball","tag-valencia","tag-valencia-basket"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}