He Barça completed the first of his goals in the Euroleague: the classification for quarters. In the remaining four days they will try to secure home court advantage for the playoff. He did it with a lackluster victory on the field of Panathinaikos (74-88), in which the leading role of Mirotic (26 points) and an inspired Tobey (16), than the irregularity of the Barça team.
“It was one of our challenges, but we have to go for more,” he acknowledged. Jasikevicius. “We are happy, but logically we are more ambitious, although we must continue to be humble and improve,” he explained. Mirotic, the best of the match, who exceeded twenty points for the third time in the last five games.
There is no middle ground for Barça. Or, to put it another way, stability. His games are usually a roller coaster of sensations, with very intense peaks, as he showed again in Athens: 11 points behind in the first quarter, and a 2-18 run in the second, which put him in command in the break (36-43). Rush in the third quarter with a streak of Miroticto trigger the differences up to 14 points and return to the unexpected disconnection to allow the Panathinaikos head up in the final stretch. The two faces of the Barça team crudely exposed in just 40 minutes, which managed to prevail due to its overwhelming dominance on the rebound (42 vs. 18) and its success on the triple (12 of 26, 46.2%).
shake the bench
With no intensity and almost no defense in the first quarter, the team from Jasikevicius was initially at the mercy of Panathinaikos, who is already out of options to reach the quarterfinals (20-10 in just five minutes). The giant Papagiannis He was the one who created the imbalance and the Lithuanian coach had to shake the team to make it react.
He got it with the input of Yakubati, with the work in defense and in the rebound of Kalinic and, above all, with an unexpected protagonist, Tobey. While the box of Christos Serelis he went more than five minutes without scoring, the American center was the main source of inspiration for the blaugrana, with 11 points out of his final 16 points in just 7 minutes, including three triples, to give the Barcelona fans the initiative.
The feeling in the resumption is that the Barça could control the game without problems and that the Panathinaikos He already seemed resigned to throwing in the towel, after conceding a partial 3-10 start, which came to silence the Oak. But, once again, the Barça team went back to their old ways, chaining errors and losses (accumulated 18) and allowed the score to narrow more than expected (60-68) to give hope to their rival. The Greek team reached the last five minutes with a totally open score (70-75).
The appearance of the two Barça protagonists of the night, Mirotic y Tobeyadding two triples in those moments of maximum tension, however, he finished closing the game and qualifying for a quarter-final in which the team from Jasikevicius he will need to offer more if he wants the ticket to the ‘final four’.
Panathinaikos, 74 – FC Barcelona, 88
Panathinaikos: Wolters (-), Thomas (11), Grigonis (13), Williams (9), Papagiannis (19) -cinco initial- Kalaitzakis (-), Paris Lee (6), Bochoridis (5), Agravanis (2), Mantzoukas (5), Gudaitis (4).
8 of 27 triples (Thomas, 2). 18 rebounds, 5 offensive (Papagiannis, 7). 15 assists (Lee, 4)
FC Barcelona: Satoransky (8), Laprovittola (2), Abrines (8), Mirotic (26), Sanli (-) -starting five- Da Silva (-), Vesely (7), Kalinic (6), Higgins (9), Tobey (16), Jokubaitis (6).
12 of 26 triples (Tobey, Mirotic, 4). 42 rebounds, 10 offensive (Kalinic, 9). 19 assists (Satoransky, 9)
Partial: 25-22; 11-21; 24-25; 14-29
