Barcelona vs Olympiacos: Basketball Recap & Analysis

Barça has recovered vigor and color with Xavi Pascual on the bench, a speech that has served to repatriate the Barça players to the basketball country. With him, the team has erased the word surrender from the dictionary and is competitive against any rival, also against an Olympiacos made up of an unparalleled constellation. Although none like Vezenkov, who can tell the bad games of recent years with one hand. It is an old-fashioned show, without fuss or tattoos, nor huge jumps or electric movements. A small gesture of the hip or an unexpected step to the side is enough to discount rivals, with a slight movement of that golden left foot to fill his hands with points. Eden for Olympiacos and life imprisonment for the rivals. And if you add to that Milutinov or Dorsey, also Fournier, Ward and a Tyreque Jones who was sweet against Barça, there is no opponent that can resist him, even though, against all logic, the team has reached the Final Four in the last four years without the definitive prize. Although Barcelona came close to explaining the opposite, a sensational exercise of resistance that only faded in the last quarter.

Shengelia stole the ball, ran, jumped and made a basket. Perfection made a play and also the supposed end of Barcelona because Olympiacos decided to put on the overalls. A basket against him served as an incentive for Vezenkov, the Prometheus of European basketball. The Bulgarian player is an ode to basketball, who does not need even half a centimeter to make the shot, nor to make memory. Triple, layup, jump and inside, crusher also for the Barça team, who conceded 13 points from a run. Because Prometheus also plays with Epimetheus, his brother, a Milutinov who doesn’t leave even crumbs under the post, who dances and plays, who didn’t even worry about the presence of Vesely in front of him. And although Barça tried to recover with a triple from Satoransky and some runs from Parra, Olympiacos always has the winning deck; He has plenty of cards and talent – there are already 19 players that Bartzokas has used in the course -, resources and basketball. Like Dorsey, who plays sprintwhich he scores almost accidentally. Too much to digest, so the quarter closed with a resounding 27-13.

With everything going against them, Olympiacos lost intensity in the circulation of the ball and at times became unconcerned about the game until Brizuela rebelled. Irreverent as he is on the court – the opposite of off it, where his manners are exemplary – the Basque Mamba kept the Blaugrana on their feet, goals from the periphery. Shengelia and Punter also took their turn and had a decent second quarter (46-37) and then tied the score at 46-46. They made the impossible possible, returning the duel to the starting point after losing by 17 points. And although Olympiacos was not up for fighting, because they wanted to beat Barcelona and any basket was worth celebrating, to raise the decibels and the communion with the stands, Pascual’s team believed it. It was even Clyburn’s turn – who was returning to the hardwood after a month off, 14 games in the rebound – since his three-pointers that came down with snow, revitalizing baskets to autograph a third quarter to frame (59-64), since they left the Greek team with 13 points. Seeing is not believing.

Clyburn continued in tune to put Barça ahead, but the reply was from Tyreque Jones, a cyclone, the Hercules of the basket, the player who with his dunks and celebratory roars recovered the hell of La Paz and La Amistad of Piraeus. That, of course, and a little more from Vezenkov, which was a lot (counting, for example, his 12 rebounds and 20 points), left Barça frozen, unable to score a point in four minutes. An irreparable defect in front of the team gods Greeks that prevented him from winning – although he took the basketaverage particular -, but do not proclaim that he has basketball and character to compete with anyone.