The Barça did not miss this Sunday the power forward Nikola Miroticabsent due to technical decision, and chased away the doubts who had been dragging lately with a solid victory at the Palau Blaugrana against Coosur Betisbottom of the Endesa League (83-63).
Although the Andalusian team briefly went ahead in the middle of the second quarter (27-29, min.15), the truth is that the Barcelona squad commanded the scoreboard for almost the entire gamewhich was seen for sentencing in the third period thanks to a partial 23-8.
On the offensive plot, the pivot Brandon Davies was the leading scorer Barça with 16 points (in addition to capturing 6 rebounds and registering 21 PIR credits), while Shannon Evans led Coosur Betis with 16 points.
The coach of the Barcelona team, Sarunas Jasikevicius, gave rest to Miroticwhich thus joined the absences due to injury to shooting guard Cory Higgins and center Pierre Oriola, while Coosur Betis was able to count on all its troops.
Barça came to the meeting after losing two of the last three games, the most recent being Friday’s bump on the court of Lithuanian Zalgiris Kaunas (91-84), the bottom of the Euroleague, so it was expected a step forward for the Catalan team against the bottom of the Endesa League, the Coosur Betis.
The Barcelona group jumped to the track very focused on defense and energetic on divided ballswhich, together with a high rate of success from the perimeter (5 of 8 in the first quarter), allowed him to open a first lead (18-9, min.8).
Despite the scoring effervescence of shooting guard Dante Exum, Coosur Betis minimized damage thanks to the interior contribution by Jacob Wiley and six consecutive free throws converted by Vitto Brown and Dairis Bertans (21-17, min.10).
The defensive improvement of the Verdiblanco team in the second quarter he cut off the scoring fluidity of the Barcelona players, without answers before the irruption in the painting of Eulis Báez and punished by two triples by Bertans and Shannon Evans (27-29, min.15).
With the departure of Sertac Sanli, Sergi Martínez and Nigel Hayes-Davis, Barça he stopped the bleeding and walked away again on the scoreboard boosted by two triples by Laprovittola and youth squad player Martínez (37-31, halftime).
Under the fluid direction of Calathes and Laprovittola and Sanli as a striker under the boards, first and the scoring contribution of Brandon Davies and Rolands Smits coming off the bench, he enlarged his mastery beyond 20 points at the end of the third quarter (60-39, min.30).
Despite lowering their defensive intensity a couple of steps, the Catalans kept their distance thanks to the inspiration of Davies in the paint (73-48, min. 36), although the most celebrated basket of the afternoon was that of the young James Nnaji, a powerful two-handed mate in an ‘alley oop’ to a pass from Rokas Jokubaitis (83-63).
Datasheet
83 – Barça (21+16+23+23): Calathes (7), Laprovittola (9), Exum (8), Hayes-Davis (2), Sanli (6) -initial team-, Davies (16), Kuric (5), Sergi Martínez (5), Smits ( 10), Abrines (11), Jokubaitis (2) and Nnaji (2).
63 – Coosur Betis (17+14+8+24): Cvetkovic (5), Leslie (4), Evans (16), Pasecnicks (4), Wiley (10) -initial team-, Burjanadze (-), Almazán (-), Bertans (8), Báez (4) and Brown (12).
referees: Jordi Aliaga, Luis Miguel Castillo and Yasmina Alcaraz. Without eliminated.
Incidents: Endesa League Matchday 24 match played at the Palau Blaugrana with 5,597 spectators. Before kick-off, a minute’s silence was held in memory of former Barça player Norman Carmichael, who died on March 3, with several of his former teammates gathered in the center circle.
