Neither the Palau is the Athens of Antiquity nor does Jabari Parker write texts with the drama of Sophocles, at least as far as is known, but the Barça sanctuary experienced an authentic Greek tragedy this Wednesday in its debut in the Euroleague playoffs. Olympiacos took more than just a victory, creating a terrible scenario for Barça. The series will experience its second round tomorrow at the Palau but those from Grimau already know that they are obliged to win in Piraeus at least once in the best of scenarios if they want to travel to Berlin.
Barça was born gripped by the pressure of always exciting playoffs, which equalize forces in a way that is as incomprehensible as it is wonderfully accurate. Everyone knows that it is the moment of truth and everything costs a little more. Also score, Grimau’s team unable to score their first points in the game until after five minutes of the game. Olympiacos was in charge with the giant Fall dancing in the paint, hammering the Barça morale. He will have lost his stars but the block that Bartzokas has built in Piraeus is one of the rockiest in the Euroleague.
Barça managed to connect with Kalinic’s first basket. It was the second unit that led those good moments of home play, although the points were added to Jabari Parker’s tally, nine almost in a row.
A shot at the first Abrines horn almost equalized the forces (18-19). The Mallorcan had uncovered his Pandora’s box because with two triples he gave the first (and only) differences of the night to Barça (25-23 and 28-25). But the difference in fouls called, 6 to 1 midway through the fourth, began to unnerve Grimau and his team, and also the public, which was close to exploding. Petrusev took advantage of the circumstance to strike like Pedro at his house before the referees, after reviewing the video, signaled an unsportsmanlike behavior towards Vesely that made the Palau tremble with rage and ignited the Barça players. Although Wright failed from the line, Canaan made the blood gush with a triple, later signed by Petrusev to make it 34-44 (minute 19). And, as human beings find pleasure in tripping over the same stone twice, Canaan did not control himself and faced the public, as in 2021 – although without the gesture of making silence –, as when the Unics player caused Barça to signed the greatest comeback in the history of the Euroleague and became an outlaw in Barcelona.
Whether it would have the same effect this time was not at all clear because a playoff match has nothing to do with anything else and Barça needed much more than old ghosts to achieve their first victory. I needed a little more head and a little less heart, for once. There was no other path than the game and he couldn’t find it. Still infected by nerves, he saw Olympiacos take the lead with an imperial Williams-Goss, author of 47-60 with a two plus one. Once again Abrines, with a triple and a couple of good defenses, uncovered the jar of dreams and led to a great reaction that ended in the 58-61 scoreline that Hernangómez signed. The Mallorcan then had a triple to tie but he missed and that failure was like a huge stone that fell on Barça, stamped against McKissic’s 59-69. The scoreboard inflated and deflated, as if going from McDonald’s dinner to boiling broccoli and again Laprovittola cut it to 67-69. It was Barça’s penultimate effort. The last one was signed by Ricky, causing a sport, but the subsequent loss of Laprovittola already exhausted the Barça’s fuel.
The tragedy was a fact. And yes, he had a Greek accent.
75. Barça (18 17 19 21): Satoransky (-), Laprovittola (9), Kalinic (6), Parker (13), Vesely (3) -starting team-, Rubio (10), Jokubaitis (6), Hernangómez (12), Abrines (11) and Da Silva (5).
77. Olympiacos (19 25 17 16): Walkup (-), Canaan (14), Peters (2), Sikma (4), Fall (11) -equipo inicial-, Williams-Goss (15), Brazdeikis (4) , Petrusev (12), Wright (4), Larentzakis (2) and McKissic (9).
Referees: Damir Javor (ESL), Tomislav Hordov (CRO) and Rain Peerandi (EST). They eliminated the visitors Walkup (min.39) and Fall (min.40) with five fouls. They called out an unsportsmanlike foul against the local Vesely (min.18).
Incidents: first game of the Euroleague basketball quarterfinals played at the Palau Blaugrana in Barcelona before 7,328 spectators.