Barça did their homework against Valencia Basket (85-71) and after finishing in second place in the regular season (23-11), the blaugrana team expected a rival for the quarterfinals, with the dressing room waiting for a possible rival. In a heart-stopping ending to the other matches that remained to be resolved, Barça’s rival will finally be Zalgiris Kaunas, after their victory against Bayern (80-83).
Barça was facing a ‘strange’ match as Jasikevicius defined it. Barça was looking for victory against Valencia Basket, although the significance was in the matches where the positions of the crossings were decided. And given the impossibility of making numbers, the logical thing is that the Barcelona group went out for the victory.
With the absences due to a technical decision by Da Silva, Paulí and Sergi Martínez, the coach already hinted that he was going for the game. And it is that Barça immediately showed its teeth to a Valencia that did not play anything in the stake and Barça wanted to finish second and wait for a rival.
With Satoransky back together with Kalinic, the one who took the helm of the blaugrana was Nikola Mirotic, who together with good minutes from Vesely and Kalinic, the blaugrana soon reached 10 points (22-12). Jasikevicius already began to move the bench, with Sanli, Higgins and Tobey.
Valencia resists
He Valencia he did not lose face to Barça and with triples from Dubljevic and Rivero, Alex Mumbrú’s team fell after the first quarter with a decent 24-21 with 12 points from Mirotic, the man of the first 10 minutes.
Although the protagonist in the second quarter was another blaugrana, the Mallorcan Alex Abrines, who began the night honored for his 500 blaugrana games and went to halftime with 15 points thanks to five three-pointers, in a colossal performance
The one who opened the fourth with a triple was Tobey with Barça playing at a good pace and scoring easily, although Valencia always responded, with the outsiders Harper, Jones and Webb, who kept their team in the game (34-29).
The Abrines Festival arrives
Then the Abrines festival started, which chained five triples before the break and that led Barça to go 12 (48-36). Although Valencia continued without giving up and with actions from Harper and Jones and a two plus one from Claver, they left the lead reduced to five at halftime (51-46).
Barça needed to involve more players offensively after Mirotic (12) and Abrines (15) scored more than half the points. The rebound was clearly in the hands of the Blaugrana with a clear 20-9. The only negative note, the 11 lost balls.
At the restart, Barça continued to speed up their gameand maintained their lead after a three-pointer from Mirotic (59-50), and who even went as far as 11 (65-54) after two free throws from Laprovittola, a little duller than usual and with many lost balls.
It was Kuric’s entry into the game, who nailed the triple and gave Barça the maximum (72-59) and Pradilla reduced it at the end of the quarter (72-61). The game seemed on track and it was time to go looking at the scoreboards.
Quarter rival earrings
In the final 10 minutes, Barça forced Valencia’s fouls very quickly, which had not just come close (74-65) with 5 minutes from the end. But the ‘taronja’ decided to fight and got close to six (74-68).
Although the visitor’s reaction did not go so far, and Barça, with a Mirotic’s new triple left the game practically sentenced (85-71) and tribute to Abrines from the stands. Now all that was missing was to find out the rival that awaits the Catalans, which will finally be Zalgiris Kaunas.
Datasheet
85. Barça (24+27+21+13): Satoransky (7), Laprovittola (4), Abrines (15), Mirotic (18), Vesely (13) -equipo inicial-, Sanli (9), Kalinic (2), Higgins (5), Tobey (5), Kuric (3), Jokubaitis (4) and Nnaji (-).
71. Valencia Basket (21+25+15+10): Harper (14), Jones (9), Puerto (-), Claver (6), Alexander (6) -initial team-, Pradilla (7), Webb III (7), Radebaugh (7), Evans (4) , Dubljevic (5), Hermansson (-) and Rivero (6).
Referees: Sasa Pukl (ESL), Uros Nikolic (SER) and Luka Kardum (CRO). Without eliminated.
Incidences: match of the thirty-fourth round of the Euroleague played at the Palau Blaugrana in Barcelona in front of 6,500 spectators. Before the initial whistle, Alex Abrines received a commemorative shirt after having reached 500 games as a Barcelona player last week.