Sport is not a land that is too fertile for mistakes not to be repeated, examples fill pages and pages of newspapers on a daily basis, but Barça offered encouraging signs this Wednesday in its debut in the Euroleague playoff against Zalgiris. It gave the feeling that Jasikevicius’s team wants to avoid the last two games that led him to the final four in Cologne and Belgrade, which were reached after five agonizing games against Zenit Saint Petersburg and Bayern. Being in Kaunas, the Barça coach’s hometown, he doesn’t want Barça to suffer so much and he took the first step to achieve it with a very convincing victory signed on the basis of three-pointers (14/26).
Maksvytis’s surprising Zalgiris, one of the revelation teams of the year, did not show its best side, but was also aware that if Barça dressed in its evening dress it would have little to scratch from its visit to the Palau.
And that’s how it was from the beginning of the clash, Barca’s activity was strenuous, their defensive intensity was tremendous and their desire to strike in attack was no less, with a Mirotic that began loading up on points very quickly, the Barça star was highly motivated , eager to scare away the European ghosts that haunt him.
The score was broken from the first baskets by the locals, which made the crowded and spirited stands of the Palau vibrate, where almost summer heat reigned. Zalgiris could not find any cracks, as they ran into the fierce Barça defense time and time again and saw how the points against them were falling one after another. A basket and additional shot by Sanli, the top scorer of the evening, raised the score to 20-6 still in the first quarter.
Little or nothing changed in the second quarter, apart from the fact that Zalgiris found more ways to increase their score a bit. The mobile Hayes and the always stiletto Brazdeikis prevented the game from not ending before the break. But already at that time a very inspired Barça was seen, also from the triple, from where they ended up riddling the Lithuanian team. In fact, it was a shot from beyond Mirotic’s arc that closed the first half at 48-31, the biggest difference of the entire night up to that moment.
As soon as the third act began, also with a triple, Laprovittola stretched to 54-35. Although everything seemed doomed and Zalgiris a very unfortunate team, he could not deny that the Baltic team did not lose faith, aware of inhabiting a scenario as grand as it was unusual. With the skilful Birutis at the helm, Zalgiris tried to close the wound, but every time he scanned the ten-point barrier, a Barça shooter emerged to abort the comeback. A scenario that was repeated until the Lithuanians finally threw in the towel and the score exploded in the air, with the maximum 83-57. Before this Barça, with Kaunas between their eyebrows, they had nothing to do.
91 – Barça (25 23 18 25): Satoransky (4), Laprovittola (8), Abrines (10), Mirotic (15), Vesely (4) -cinco inicial-, Kalinic (0), Sanli (17), Jokubaitis (12), Tobey (9), Kuric (10), Nnaji (0) and MartÃnez (2).
69 – Zalgiris Kaunas (13 18 22 16): Taylor (2), Ulanovas (4), Butkevicius (2), Smits (2), Hayes (9) -cinco inicial-, Dimsa (6), Brazdeikis (14), Birutis (7), Polonara (8), Lekavicius (5) and Giedraitis (10).
Referees: Belosevic (SRB), Nedovic (SLO) and Kardum (CRO). No deleted.
Incidents: 6,731 spectators attended the first game of the semifinal series played at the Palau Blaugrana.