The Barça will travel to Cologne to participate from Friday in the Euroleague Final Four with very good feelings after clearly defeating in the last week two of the leading teams in the Endesa League, the Baskonia Wednesday and Lenovo Tenerife this Saturday. The Canarian team, which finished the regular phase in third position, only surpassed by the Real Madrid and the Barça, He could not do anything this time to challenge the Barça team, which dominated him from start to finish until they ended up winning by a clear 72-96.
It’s hard to get your teeth into this one Barça when back bottom is used. In the absence of good aim and offensive fluidity, the defense drove the Catalans in the first half. During the first twenty minutes to those of Jasikevicius They did not enter the triples (2/10) and they did not find other clear paths to the rival rim except for the multiple resources near the rim of a Brandon davies that has multiplied its performance since the arrival of Pau Gasol.
The 37 halftime points could be a very poor booty in any other game but they had a special value when compared to the Pyrrhic 30 in which the player had stayed. Lenovo Tenerife, until yesterday the second best attack in the competition with 87.44 on average. Barça had managed to deactivate Marcelinho Huertas already Georgi shermadini, one of the most dangerous couples in the Endesa League. The Georgian center has rarely reached this season at halftime with only 2 points under his belt.
If until the break (30-37) Barça had dominated on defense, in the resumption the Barça team finished the game based on success and a better reading in attack. A arreón of War Y Fitipaldo placed the Lenovo just one point (40-41) but Barça responded immediately. Calathes he directed with the greatest clairvoyance of recent times and the attack began to function as a precision mechanism, including triples (3/3 in the third quarter). Pau Gasol He showed again that every day he is more established and contributes more to the team.
The Lenovo He tried to keep up with the Catalans but only succeeded until the end of the third quarter (56-65). From there, Barça put on the overalls again to defend his hoop while he continued to play very comfortable in attack with Higgins unleashed and Abrines Y Kuric hammering the hoop from the outside.
The Barça, who had scored 37 points in the first half, added 59 in the second to head towards a much more comfortable victory (72-96) than the duel between the second and third placed in this regular phase of the League predicted. Endesa.
The Catalans, second at the end of this regular phase, will be measured from Tuesday, June 1 at Joventut, seventh, in the quarterfinals of the Endesa League. But there is still a lot to do, before the Catalans must play a Final Four and try to come back from it with the third Euroleague in their history.
[+] See the summary with the best plays of the game:
Data sheet
72 – Lenovo Tenerife (17 + 13 + 26 + 16). Huertas (14), Salin (4), Doornekamp (3), Sulejmanovic (9), Shermadini (9) -initial-, Yusta (3), Fitipaldo (13), Jenkins (2), Rodríguez (-), Cavanaugh ( 5) and War (10).
96 – Barça (20 + 17 + 28 + 31). Calathes (14), Higgins (12), Abrines (11), Mirotic (4), Davis (16) -initial-, Hanga (-), Bolmaro (8), Smits (3), Gasol (12), Oriola ( 2), Kuric (14) and Claver (-)
Referees: Pérez García González, Araña and Sánchez Cutillas. They indicated technique to the Barcelona coach, Jasikevicius (min.20), the Lenovo Tenerife bench (min.27), the local coach, Txus Vidorreta (min.29) and Aaron Doornekamp (min.34). They eliminated Marcelinho Huertas for fouls (min 40).
Incidents: Santiago Martín Sports Pavilion.