Guadalajara (Mexico), Oct 24 (EFE).- Spanish coach Pablo García’s Bees from León defeated his compatriot Sergio Valdeomillos’ Astros de Jalisco on Tuesday 84-79 to go ahead 2-0 in the final of the Liga de Mexico basketball.
In Guadalajara, the American Michael Smith converted a triple to make the score 81-77 with 34 seconds remaining, which marked the fate of the duel.
The first partial was alternate domain. Garcia’s Bees fell behind 14-9, but recovered and went ahead 23-22, led by Blake Javion, who scored six points with a couple of rebounds.
Jalisco was dry in the attack in the first three minutes of the second half, which allowed León to go ahead with Tre Mc Lean leading the way, who scored 17 points in the first half, which ended with his team leading by 43- 39, with 31 rebounds, by 18 his rival.
In the third quarter, Javion slipped down the court unnoticed as the Bees scrambled on offense and took a 60-47 run with just over three minutes remaining.
The American reappeared by scoring a shot from three, the beginning of an explosion by the Valdeolmillos team that in less than a minute closed 60-56.
Dominican Rigoberto Mendoza missed a long-range shot, but Gutiérrez converted to tie the third segment and keep the Astros in the fight, at the end of the quarter he was down by just three points, 62-58.
As in the previous two segments, the Astros started slowly, lost balls and the Abejas de León recovered the lead to 10 points, 68-58.
The Astros, who were shooting 2-for-22 from 3, improved on a basket from behind by Javion to put the Astros within three points of their rival, 70-67, with 4:11 remaining.
The duel raised the temperature. Despite being erratic on 3-point shooting, the Astros pulled within 78-77, but Smith hit his best shot of the Finals to put the Bees ahead by four.
Jorge Gutiérrez closed the Astros 81-79, Erick Thomas increased León’s lead with a free throw made, which turned the Arena Astros into a swarm. Karim Rodríguez confirmed the terrible night of the Astros in shots from behind (they scored 5 of 29) and missed the shot of three that meant the tie, after which Wayne Langston escaped and scored the final two points.
Tre Mc Lean was the best scorer for the Bees, with 26 points, while for the Astros, Javion had 24.
The Bees, who won this Monday 85-77, have everything in their favor in the final, which will end when one of the two rivals wins four times and will continue next Thursday at the Fair Dome in León, in the center of the country.
(c) EFE Agency