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oct 04 2026The orange squad defeats Casademont Zaragoza, 82-97, and opens its win column with TJ Shorts as the standout performer (21 points, 5 assists and 26 rating)
Valencia Basket's strong fourth-quarter run, with a 15-31 partial, completely overwhelmed Casademont Zaragoza and allowed them to secure their first Liga Endesa 2026-27 victory at Príncipe Felipe in the championship's second matchday.
With solid control of the boards thanks to Gabriel Olaseni's work, and guided by an excellent Guillem Vives, Zaragoza controlled the game in the first half and with Justin Jaworski's points held off Valencia Basket's initial push, but the visitors, who had been sustained by TJ Shorts, added Nikola Mirotic and Josep Puerto and, three-pointer by three-pointer, secured the win despite entering the final quarter down by one.
With Tray Bell-Haynes running the offense and controlling the rebounds on both ends, Casademont Zaragoza took command of the scoreboard and the momentum at the start of the game. The point guard opened up Valencia's defense and his team took advantage of his reading and verticality with two three-pointers from Jaworski and two more from Miguel González (18-9, min.6).
With a double Euroleague matchday in between, Valencia had much less time to prepare and it showed. Its players had to create their own shots and, facing the risk of falling behind, Xavi Albert had to accelerate the return to the court of the elusive TJ Shorts.
His presence, along with a solid Neal Sako, encouraged the home team to tighten their defense to run and tie the game (22-21, min.10).
The defensive aggressiveness on the front line of Caleb Homesley kept the home team alive, but Valencia, with Álvaro Cárdenas, began to move the ball better and eventually took the lead in a phase where both teams chained execution failures.
Local head coach Gonzalo García de Vitoria turned to Guillem Vives, who had fouled out quickly, to regain control of the pace; to Nico Brussino to see the basket open again; and to Gabriel Olaseni to regain dominant control of the boards. With that trio, Casademont reached halftime ahead (39-36, min.20).
After the restart, a quality display from Nikola Mirotic put Valencia back in front, but the veteran Vives didn't back down and maintained the battle with determination, well supported again by Brussino (57-57, min.27).
The presence of a distracted Mo Gueye in Valencia and the scoring appearance of Jaworski helped Zaragoza open a small five-point gap, but the Aragonese team chose to let TJ Shorts shoot, the American held up under pressure and his three-pointers and those of an accurate Josep Puerto, repositioned at power forward, restored the tie.
Casademont was drenched by Valencia's barrage of three-pointers, to which Cárdenas and Taylor contributed, as well as some unforced errors on open shots (73-83, min.36). Jaworski's tenacity was not enough.
Valencia had just played the same script in France and managed with ease and good accuracy from the 6.75-meter line the finish to round out a perfect week with two European wins and one in the ACB.
- Box score:
82.- Casademont Zaragoza (22+17+28+15): Bell-Haynes (5), Jaworski (22), González (6), Blumbergs (4), Olaseni (12) -starting five- Homesley (9), Brussino (9), Jaime Fernández (1), Birutis (5), Vives (9) and Sergi García (-).
97.- Valencia Basket (21+15+30+31): TJ Shorts (21), Saint-Supéry (6), Taylor (9), Mirotic (17) and Sako (4) -starting five- Cárdenas (9), Corbalán (5), Brooks (4), Puerto (16), Rivero (1), Gueye (-) and Reuvers (5).
