The Barça I would not have reached this Final
Four Without him and without him I would be contesting the Euroleague title this Sunday. Cory
Higgins became the executing arm of Barça in the semi-final in Cologne, sentencing the victory over him Armani
Milan (84-82) with a crucial suspension of five meters, 8 tenths from the end. In the purest style of his godfather Michael
Jordan.
His basket put an end to the suffering of a dramatic second half in which Barça threw away his previous work, was at the mercy of the rival and had to recover his best defensive version to propitiate a final heads or tails.
It was not even close to the best game in months of Higgins, which finished with 11 points, but the most important. More productive than he were Mirotic (21) and, above all, Calathes (17), deprived of playing the end of the game due to injury.
FC Barcelona-Armani Milan, in pictures
If a locked and defensive game was expected, the players of both teams were in charge of denying it very soon. Mirotic Y Calathes They gave Barça an initial boost (7-2) but Micov Y Leday they answered for the Milanese side (7-7). Each Barça escape attempt found quick answers with several players entering into good dynamics of success.
Pau
Gasoline He claimed prominence by scoring his first three shots (with a triple) coming off the bench and helping the game to go at a somewhat pace and score. The 27-24 at the end of the first quarter was eloquent.
The dynamic was maintained in the second quarter with Barça achieving first defensive successes in the minutes in which it was Bolmaro on track. A couple of robberies thwarted the attack by the de Messina that also fit a triple of Abrines to give up by a maximum difference of eleven (49-38) a minute and a half from the break. At the interval they arrived with 51-42 and good feelings of dominance for those of Jasikevicius.
It’s incredible how feelings can change in just a few minutes of a game. From the fluid game of the first half and the security went to the errors and from there to the nerves, in a disastrous third quarter in which an initial 8-26 partial was registered. It all started with missed shots from Davies Y Mirotic near the rim and was later complicated with multiple losses that gave wings to the Milanese. Only Kevin was missing Punter went on a roll with a series of suspended baskets that left Barça’s defense naked. The advantages of Armani they reached eight points (59-67) after a triple of Sergio
Rodriguez and the catastrophe would have been capital if another had not come on Calathes’s quarter-final horn that gave his team some oxygen (67-71).
With the team loaded with fouls on the perimeter, the only thing missing was that CalathesUntil then the best player on the team, he will be knocked out in the fourth quarter. At 3:22 from the end, the Greek stepped on the foot of Hines in a fall after a pass and suffered a severe sprain that brought him to the bench with help.
By then, the game had regained equality and Barça accentuated the defensive aggressiveness typical of their style of play this season. It was the robberies achieved on the opponent’s reception actions that led the team to arrive with some minimal advantages to the final stretch, a few minutes of nerves. After a triple of Punter who tied at 82, came failures from Mirotic, Micov, Bolmaro and his own Punter until Higgins put an end to these nonsense with his providential basket. He broke his ‘silence’ when he was most needed.
[+]Enjoy Higgins’s decisive basket
