Purpose: A basketball match is characterized as highly intermittent, thereby relying extensively on both aerobic and anaerobic metabolic pathways with four 10-min quarters. Here, we aimed to compare the metabolic fluctuations between the quarters of high-level basketball games using metabolomics analyses. Methods: 70 male basketball players with at least 3 years of experience in the Iran national top-league participated. Before and after each quarter, saliva samples were taken for subsequent untargeted metabolomics analyses, where Principal component analysis (PCA) and Partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLSDA) were employed for statistical analysis. Results: Quarters 1 and 3 showed similar metabolic profiles, with increased levels of ATP turnover (higher Lactate, Pyruvate, Succinic Acid, Citric Cid, Glucose and Hypoxanthine), indicating more reliance on anaerobic energy systems than quarters 2 and 4. In comparison, Quarters 2 and 4 showed a reduction in Valine and Lucien and an increase in Alanine, Glycerol, Aceto-Acetic Acid, Acetone, Succinic Acid, Citric Acid, Acetate and Taurine that was not present in quarters 1 and 3, indicating greater reliance of aerobic energy contribution, fat metabolism and gluconeogenesis. Conclusion: Our data demonstrates that the higher intensity of movements in the first quarter, where players are more rested; induce a increase anaerobic energy contribution. This seems to be the case also for the third quarter that follows 15 minutes of rest, whereas the accumulated fatigue and reduction of high-intensity movements in the second and fourth quarters also reduces the speed of energy production and players relay more on aerobic energy.
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