This movie deserves to start at the end. With 0.5 seconds left in overtime, with the score at 80-80, Jabari Parker attempts the decisive three-pointer and Petrusev grazes his arm. The ball does not even come close to the ring but the referee trio declares a personal foul to the stupor and anger of more than 12,000 enthusiastic Greek fans in a decision never seen before in Piraeus, an extreme that does not exempt the Serbian from the foul. The one from Illinois scores the first two and misses the third to ensure a monumental victory for a Barça capable of believing in the worst moments of the duel and that is just one win away from the final four, also ensuring a possible fifth game under the protection of his audience at the Palau.
Going back a few more seconds, we must also give a lot of credit to Tomas Satoransky, who with his team about to kiss the canvas was able to beat Williams-Goss and then score a triple from the corner to make it 80-80 in full match agony. In extra time, Fall’s endless arms had threatened to destroy Barça’s commendable efforts to stay on their feet.
But it is worth rewinding a little more before standing at the starting box, and finding ourselves in the last seconds of regulation time, with Laprovittola inventing the tie at 71-71 with a basket past the rim against the giant Fall and with Abrines signing a defense sublime against a Williams-Goss who seemed like a nightmare.
Now, it is time to evaluate the match as a whole, with a supportive Barça despite the difficulty of the challenge, which alternated moments of brilliance with some blackouts, but which showed the character of a champion team.
There were no secrets in the Pavilion of Peace and Friendship, one of those comic ironies of sports, where there is no room for showtime and the only way to get ahead is with the overalls, chewing every point and dying for every rebound . Bartzokas’ Olympiacos is not fooling anyone, as it plunged Barça into a sea of ??contacts and fouls, as in the first two matches. But this time, Grimau’s team showed talent and determination, adapting much better to what the night demanded.
He ended up dominating the rebound, for example, with a great collective exercise in which Jabari Parker stood out with 9 sacks. The Blaugrana had their best moment at the end of the third quarter, in which they were able to score up to 25 points thanks to their success from the three-point range, such as that of Jabari Parker who scored the visitor’s highest score of the entire game (51-57). On the other side of the scale we must put the 37-29 that a great Petrusev put, the local maximum, before which Barça began to chain triples to somewhat silence the noisy Helena stands.
In the last act, Olympiacos dominated, who seemed to have the victory in their hands but two consecutive triples by Abrines in the last two minutes gave life to Barça. And the ending of the movie is already explained.
Barça’s conquest was sublime.
80. Olympiacos (13 24 14 20 9): Walkup (10), Canaan (0), Peters (8), Sikma (0), Fall (8) -equipo inicial-, Petrusev (18), McKissic (8), Williams-Goss (9), Larentzakis (3) and Wright (16).
82. Barça (13 19 25 14 11): Rubio (0), Laprovittola (12), Kalinic (5), Parker (13), Vesely (16) -starting team-, Jokubaitis (0), Satoransky (13), Abrines (6), Hernangómez (13), Da Silva (2), Brizuela (2).
Referees: Ilija Belosevic (SER), Mehdi Difallah (FRA) and Milan Nedovic (ESL). They called out an unsportsmanlike foul on Laprovittola (min.35).
Incidents: third game of the Euroleague basketball quarterfinals played at the Peace and Friendship Pavilion in Piraeus (Greece).
