WITH THE HANGOVER AS A BACKPACK
Belgrade must make Barça react. Let’s hope that the team doesn’t take long to recharge batteries, and that they face the playoffs with the lesson well learned. The bitter defeat against Madrid showed once again that the Blaugrana are vulnerable if they don’t do things right. Barça has a dangerous ability to “disappear” in different sections of the meetings that ends up being very destabilizing. It is evident that you cannot always be at 100% during the forty minutes. But what Saras must achieve is that, when those moments of confusion arrive, the fall is controlled and does not become a slide of nonsense that puts them on the verge of KO.
This is what happened in the third quarter of the semifinals, and that many of us still cannot explain. It is true, on the other hand, that the blaugranas have, at the moment, players who are far from their best form. It is not the solid and united Barça in which all its men added up when they were on the court. Jasikevicius is obliged to bring his team together again and also recover those who are somewhat downcast. Winning or not, the ACB will mark the balance of the season for the Blaugranas.
A MADRID THAT WANTS, BUT CAN’T
They caressed success, but they stayed at the gates. Unlike Barça, which has gone from more to less, the whites have recovered from a few horrible months of play and results. They faced the Final Four with possibilities, but they have not been able to win a title that would have dispelled many ghosts. Winning the Euroleague, the biggest prize of the season, would have given them peace of mind and it would be Barça who would have had emergencies and nerves. But they could not. Madrid, despite occasional victories of merit, continues to slide down the slope of losing competitiveness. He is still a fearsome opponent, but it seems to me that his best moments are over.
If Barça is capable of winning the ACB, by rebound, it will manage to leave its rival without a title in the last two years. AND, Today, I don’t see Laso’s men with enough strength to beat the Blaugrana in five games, with the track factor against. Of course, as long as Barça recovers the ambition and desire they showed not so long ago, and that turned them into a dominating team.
