The Barça surpassed (68-86) the Real Madrid this Friday on matchday 26 of the Euroleague held at the WiZink Center, a Clásico culé that ate up the eternal rival’s morale a bit, in addition to equaling him at the top of the table and causing the White’s first home loss.
Sarunas Jasikevicius’s men scored the fifth victory of the last six duels against Pablo Laso’s men, three in a row, to continue their current positive dynamic. Madrid now shares the continental leadership (20-5) and loses for the first time in the Euroleague Palace (13-1)although in the Endesa League he came from three defeats.
With the pavilion full and the thirst for revenge cracking the white mouths, the night was tortuous for Laso’s men from very early on. Barça looked better in defense from the start, but the ball got bigger and bigger (2-24) until reaching a difference in the score that was on the scoreboard for a long time.
For more local sting, Jasikevicius’ team did it without forcing, with defense and triples. Laprovittola, 12 points in the first quarter, Sanli and Exum gave much of that income, while Laso looked for solutions in the rotation. Madrid began to lose their minds in attack and only Tavares, under the rim, made up.
Hanga and Williams-Goss put muscle on defense, but Madrid had to win two games against the tide. First stop the bleeding and then find rhythm in attack to get back into the game. The local respite was more because Kuric was not inspired, although Jokubaitis made the difference grow again (10-36).
Llull put energy into it, but the hoop spat out his attempts, just like Heurtel. The Palace accompanied at least in the suffering and Madrid wanted not to give up, despite the fact that the efforts were not worth changing the score down. Calathes did not get nervous with the noise and directed the end of the first time culé (31-52).
A brilliant tackle from Laso’s men was expected and they did. Abalde and Tavares lowered that psychological rent of the 20, but a triple of those that hurt from Laprovittola and the irruption of Mirotic returned the local problems (40-62). The Hispanic-Montenegrin, who was celebrating his 31st birthday, went into the break with two points and finished with 9, certainly not his best game.
Madrid, on the back of Tavares (25 points), gave another rush to end the third quarter alive, hot in defense and squeezing like the Palace in the arbitration controversy (55-71). Those of ‘Saras’ seemed to get entangled in trying to get a Mirotic crazy with Yabusele’s defense into the game, just like Davies at times with Tavares, the best of his.
Madrid failed in the final start, the released triples did not enter him, when the feeling of suffocation could have been greater. The step forward for Laso’s men was not enough, thanks again to Calathes’ criteria to get his men out of collapse. Laprovittola (20) scored what Mirotic missed and Barça claimed the victory. Another Clasico for Jasikevicius’ men, one week away from a Copa del Rey that points to a new date for both, like every title at stake this season.
