To Kaunas one goes through Kaunas. Redundancy becomes a reality on Barça’s path to its third consecutive final four, from which it is only separated by a win after defeating a very quarrelsome Zalgiris again. To finish closing his classification, he must win next week in Lithuania and thus seal his return ticket to the Baltic in less than a month.
The second duel of the series outlined a script that was nothing like the first. Zalgiris got up after the hard blow conceded on Wednesday, when they saw a much superior Barça, and they competed until the end. The Lithuanian team does not lack incentives to look for the feat, not in vain will they organize the final four in their pavilion, which would mean their classification for a country where the basket is religion.
Brazdeikis opened the scoring of the night at the Palau and gave Zalgiris the first advantage of the entire series. Everything indicated that the slope for Jasikevicius’ men was beginning, as it was. The three-pointers did not enter the Catalans with the ease that in the first stake and their defense did not start either (they conceded 44 points at halftime). The result of everything was a score timidly tinted in Lithuanian green, with the 14-19 drawn by Ulanovas as the first notice.
Maksvytis’s team, as intense as ever on the wing, did not give up and easily found points, shattering the Barça paint to the desperation of Jasikevicius, who chained one fight after another. 18 of the 23 points of the second act of the Lithuanians came from the area, a devastating figure for the performance of the locals.
Vesely was Barça’s spearhead, the only reliable reference in attack until Mirotic’s appearance after the break. Because although in defense the Czech was just as poorly tuned as his teammates, his points –18 at halftime– maintained equality. But not even with a couple of timely three-pointers from Kalinic could Barça knock down a willful and successful Zalgiris, who did not let the blaugrana slip away on the scoreboard by more than three points before going to the changing rooms.
The second half turned into a beautiful and monumental battle. Nothing to do with the WiZink thing. There were no fists but basketball in a magnificent tactical duel in which Barca’s superiority ended up prevailing. Barça tried to break the game by tightening the nuts a lot in defense and with a highly inspired Mirotic looking at the basket (18 points after the break). The 55-49 scored by the Montenegrin seemed to straighten the Barça path but Zalgiris scrambled with unwavering faith and with a stellar Brazdeikis. Then it was Smits, with two triples, the one who returned to balance the forces after another local demarcation. But before the umpteenth Barça attack, which came with the signing of Jokubaitis, author of the final 89-81 score that was the best of the match, Zalgiris had to surrender, which promises to put up a lot of battle at the Zalgirio Arena. That is precisely where Barça must climb the last step.
89. Barça (20 25 23 21): Satoransky (6), Laprovittola (5), Abrines (5), Mirotic (22), Vesely (26) -equipo inicial-, Tobey (0), Jokubaitis (9), Sanli (2), MartÃnez (-), Kalinic (8), Kuric (6) and Nnaji (0).
81. Zalgiris Kaunas (21 23 22 15): Taylor (7), Ulanovas (13), Brazdeikis (20), Butkevicius (7), Smits (8) -equipo inicial-, Lekavicius (5), Birutis (10), Polonara (2), Dimsa (4), Hayes (3) and Giedraitis (2).
Referees: Sasa Pukl (ESL), Anne Panther (ALE) and Tomislav Hordov (CRO). Son eliminated.
Incidents: second game of the Euroleague quarterfinals played at the Palau Blaugrana in Barcelona before 7,041 spectators.