"The student & the teacher": Ivanov (Lietkabelis) fell short to Vladov (Malaga) 67:80

2k24 Season 2: EuroCup Group B:

Lietkabelis (Martin Ivanov) - Unicaja Malaga (Viktor Vladov) 67:80

Watch full game re-live here

Lietkabelis, controlled by the Bulgarian Martin Ivanov has his 'coaching buddy' in the face of Virtual Euroleague main board member and teams creator, Viktor Vladov, the gamer for BCL Spanish side Unicaja Malaga.

They met the first time in an official game, although they have played hundreds of friendly game already. Most of them, or at least 90% of them had the German-Bulgarian ex reallife pro basketball player winning. The stakes were pretty much going Vladov's way, but both went unbeaten into this matchup that had a lot of trash-talking at stream start and even before.

Lietkabelis with 4-0 record, meanwhile Malaga with 7-0, so one of them was about to get his undefeated season 2 start ended.

More or less surprisingly the better start had Martin and Lietkabelis, as he won the first quarter with a double digit lead: 26-15 as the Lithuanian side was prepared defensively and attacked the rim of turnovers. Not the typical more or less one-dimensional perimeter shooting from Lietkabelis, with what Martin Ivanov 'lives or dies' his matches to wins or losses.

Vladov seemed surprised first and it took him a while to shake off the shaky start, but won every single quarter after, still running after a deficit till the middle of the 4th quarter, where things finally turned around for the highly favorised side and gamer.

The second quarter has been won by Malaga (20-14), but Lietkabelis was still up by 5 (40-35).

Malaga struggled from deep, but condensed the mistakes and turnovers that led to many easy buckets for the opponent.

In the second half things turned completely around according the match control and points off turnovers.

The third quarter won by only 3 points by the Spanish side (18-15), cut down the deficit within 2 at the start of the last quarter (55-53 for the home side).

A final dominance and run of Unicaja with a 27-12 quarter, led to a dominant winning result for Vladov and Malaga (67-80).

So all in all, even the viewers interacting during the stream were surprised by Martin's dominance and overall control in the first 1.5 quarters, but Vladov and Malaga fought back slowly but steadily and put on some heavyweight punches to fight the underdog.

The better ending at the night, with Wrestlemania XL Sunday just around the corner an hour away after the EuroCup game end, unlikely the WWE, the underdog lost a big fight, but at least earned big respect and showed up a huge improvement once again and that he can be an upset of the big dogs, which can lead to a deeper playoff run and upsets than last season's EuroCup (Quarterfinal reach for Lietkabelis and Martin Ivanov).

Malaga hit tremendously high 61% of all their shots from the field, with 27% from deep range vs 41% field goals of Lietkabelis and 21% from long range.

Turnovers had been the issue for the winning side: 14 for Malaga to 9 for Lietkabelis, but 60 points were scored in close basket area for Vladov, 34 for Ivanov.

The key players for the Lithuanian side have been: Sirvydis (22 p, 8-12 FG), Orelik (16 p), Varnas (10 p).

The key players for the Spanish side have been: Kravish (16 p, 10 reb, 8-9 fg), Osetkowski (15 p, 12 reb, 7-9 fg), Ejim (12 p, 5-8 fg, 2-3 3%).

After that game Lietkabelis has 4-1 record, tied with Samsunspor, meanwhile Unicaja Malaga with 8-0 reaching to the podium spots in Eurocup's Group B.