The Barça prevailed at Casademont Zaragoza in the Palace (68-63) in a gray game and inefficient in shooting, although It was enough to overcome a hand-to-hand warrior who was always close.Although he never gave the feeling of being able to win.
Saras rationed the minutes to several players thinking about the duel in 48 hours on the Red Star track and the irregular play, especially in the outside shot, left the game too open against the hand team.
With Higgins missing, by technical decision and a Sertac Sanli with cervical problemsthe Barça team had a bad start to the game against Casademont Zaragoza at the Palau, which came out more daring in attack in the face of the blaugrana doubts.
A surprising initial 0-7 that Mirotic could only break with Barça’s first basket after four minutes of doubts and errors. Barça, after that initial blow of the hands, reacted with consecutive triples from Laprovittola and Satoransky (9-9) that broke the surprising visitor start.
Although far from picking up a run, Barça couldn’t find the rhythm of the game despite Nnaji’s good minuteswho managed to dominate in the area, although the game was controlled by Porfirio Fisac’s team (14-17).
Saras brought on Vesely and Da Silva, and the team recovered a bit of freshness, to which Kuric was added to give Barça its first advantage (20-19). The American scored a triple that put the best minutes of the locals on track with a Vesely on a rollreaching the maximum of the match (29-21) after another hit from an incisive Jokubaitis.
The duel seemed controlled although Casademont punished again with their good defense and the differences were reduced to four (34-30). Jasikevicius did not like the relaxation of his team and after the reprimand in the band, he decided to change the team completely.
With the return of Mirotic, the entry of Tobey, with Pauli and Nnaji, Barça returned to command (38-31) but without the feeling of control of the duel, with dominance of Casademont in the rebound (16-19) that resulted in a new visiting arreón, to get closer to only two points at halftime led by Jessup (38-36).
At the restart, Laprovittola returned to the team and opened the scoring with a triple. Barça wanted to open a gap but could not do it with an effective Sant Roos (43-43). There was no way to control the game, neither in defense nor in attack.
Nonetheless, Barça put more energy personified in an effective Vesely, and little by little the difference was opening (55-44) who reached a maximum of 12 (58-46) at the end of the quarter.
With homework almost done, it was time to sentence a sticky Casademont who was going to try at the start of the final quarter. And he achieve it thanks to a partial of 0-7 (60-53). Saras was the one who had to stop the game, and look for new ways of attack.
Jokubaitis appeared there, a triple by Da Silva and a rogue action by Laprovittola to return to 10 points of income (67-57) at 4:35 from the end and without Mirotic on track, neither Satoransky nor Vesely, one of the standouts in the third quarter.
Although the new visiting arreón (67-61) forced Saras to put Mirotic and Vesely in the game to try to close it. It was not necessary. the final two minutes They were a complete mistake, something that benefited Barça to close an ugly gamebut at least with victory, which was the great objective (68-63).
