SINGAPORE INDOOR STADIUM, SINGAPORE – After a dominant showing all tournament long, Spanish squad Unicaja Malaga got the job done as they beat the NBA G League United 75-60 in the FIBA Intercontinental Cup 2024 title game Sunday night here.

Unicaja were phenomenal throughout the entirety of the FIBA ICC, having an average winning margin of 21 points per game. They defeated Angola’s Petro de Luanda and Lebanon’s Al Riyadi Beirut in the group stages before finishing off the Americans in the championship match.

The Spanish side started out strong, converting on all of their shot attempts, to jump out on an early lead in the first quarter. Dylan Osetkowski got going early, and ended up finishing with 15 points to lead his team in scoring. Four players scored in double figures for Unicaja as they distributed the ball well leading to 25 total assists to GLU’s 16.

For his efforts, Osetkowski was named the MVP of the Tournament.

“As you see in all three games, I think there’s multiple guys in double figures; there’s multiple guys shooting threes and driving to the basket. We play a very team-oriented game of basketball offensively – everybody’s touching the ball, everyone has an opportunity to score ,” Osetkowski said to BasketballNews.com in the post-game press conference when asked about the way Unicaja plays. “Everybody can play a role and have an opportunity to be the top scorer – for this tournament it was myself, you replay the tournament maybe it could be somebody else. So, we have a very deep team that has the ability to play the game of basketball which is team oriented.”

“The main key of this team is the team chemistry,” Unicaja coach Ibon Navarro added. “One day Dylan [Osetkowski] can shine, then the next one it could be anyone, so it’s not easy to choose one star or MVP from our team because we got many players that give their best to make their team win.”

Despite the final score, both teams went back and forth in the first half, the two teams, trading make after make. The first quarter ended up 22-17 with Unicaja leading by 5 and 38-32 at the half, still Unicaja with the lead.

However, a furious start to the third quarter by the Spanish had them erecting a lead to as large as 18, 52-34, halfway through – unleashing a 14-2 run that United wasn’t able to overcome in the end. 

NBA GLU tried to mount one last comeback attempt with just two minutes to go but it was not enough as they ran out of time.

Still, it was a great effort for the United, who were just formed just two weeks before the tournament. G League United coach Paul Hewitt lauded Unicaja for outplaying them. 

“I thought we had enough talent to win this whole thing even with our minimal preparations. I think they [Unicaja] are well-drilled. They just played better than us tonight. There have been shots we missed in the first half, that could’ve really tightened the game up and maybe given us the lead going into the locker room, but like I said our guys played well but they played better.”

A late Keisei Tominaga moment was a bright spot in United’s tough loss as he stole the show with under a minute left – and the crowd roared to the delight of his first made three-pointer in the game.

Tominaga, a rising Japanese star who just recently joined Curry Brand, struggled from the field for NBA GLU with just 1/5 shooting from three.

The Spanish side proved to be too much to handle as they ran away with the lead in the 4th quarter, and clinched the title. According to FIBA, it was Europe’s 23rd championship overall in the intercontinental meet between the champions of each continent, 11 of which were produced by teams from Spain.

Earlier in the day, Australia’s Tasmania JackJumpers won the bronze medal match against Al Riyadi Beirut, 80-75. They made history by becoming Oceania’s first ever medallists in the history of the tournament.

Petro de Luanda, Africa’s champion, closed out their campaign strong by winning against South America’s champion Quimsa from Argentina, 70-64, to clinch 5th place in the tournament.

The final standings from this year’s FIBA Intercontinental Cup:

1. Unicaja (Spain)
2. NBA G League United (USA)
3. Tasmania JackJumpers (Australia)
4. Al Riyadi Beirut (Lebanon)
5. Petro De Luanda (Angola)
6. Quimsa (Argentina)