Barça maintains the sole leadership of the Endesa League thanks to the victory of enormous merit that he achieved on Tuesday at the court of UCAM Murcia by 87-89 despite the absences due to injury to Cory Higgins, Pierre Oriola, Rokas Jokubaitis, Sertaç Sanli and Brandon Davies.
And much of the blame for that hard-working victory was Nikola Mirotic. In one of his best games as a Barça playerthe power forward showed his most complete facet to make a difference both on the perimeter and under the hoops.
The great star of Barça scored 30 points with only five misses (6/8 in shots from two, 2/3 in triples and 12/14 in free throws with the last one missed on goal), he received 11 fouls, grabbed nine rebounds (four in attack) and went up to +39 in PIR.
Nikola Mirotic, massage after his exhibition
| FCB
It was a match postponed due to cases of covid in the Murcian team and Mirotic is not the MVP of that 22nd round due to the colossal performance of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Dzanan Musa, who on February 13 went to +47 in the victory of Río Breogán against Valencia Basket (99-82) with 31 points (he only missed three shots), five rebounds, seven assists and eight fouls received. By the way, the Italian Simone Fontecchio (Bitci Baskonia) also rated +39.
Commitment
From the day he stamped his form as a new Barça player, the Hispano-Montenegrin has always shown an enormous identification with the club and he has shown it on multiple occasions, such as when he reached the 2020-21 league final with physical problems and could not help crying after the defeat against Baskonia after having emptied himself. Or in the celebrations of the titles with an effusiveness and an illusion typical of a kid from La Masia.
Mirotic does not stop justifying his signing
| EFE
At the Palacio de los Deportes, Mirotic threw the team behind him like so many other times but with a special peculiarity. Aware that the losses of Oriola, Sanli and Davies who will not play this week left the ‘paint’ very thin and after seeing how UCAM Murcia grabbed six offensive rebounds in the first quarter, the one from Podgorica put on his overalls to finish as the game’s top rebounder.
In fact, he elbowed and made a jump more typical of Dante Exum (eight rebounds and 18 points also in a sensational game) to snatch a rebound from a true specialist like former Madrid player Augusto Lima. With that extra motivation, Nikola Mirotic He is an unstoppable player and the best news for Barça is that their leader is going through a sweet moment.
