With a psychic appearance in the 4th period, Barcelona reached the upset against CSKA Moscow and the home victory (81-73), which brings it to the top of the standings with a record of 8-2.
Top for the Catalans Mirotic (21 points, 8 rebounds), Yukobaitis (11 points) and Kalathis (10 points, 7 assists), with the latter having an injury problem.
On the other, Itoudis’s team suffered the 4th defeat in the 5 most recent matches and fell to 5-5. Wojtmann (21 points, 6 rebounds) and Sengelia (17 points, 6 rebounds) fought, Milutinov returned to action after several weeks.
The match
The two groups were quite nervous and misplaced in the first minutes, while keeping pace with the score (9-9 in 7 ‘). Yokubaitis carried Barcelona on his back and kept it standing with 6 consecutive points in the final of the season, which ended with the two teams drawing (13-13).
With Kuric to enter the equation, the Catalans escaped somewhat at the start of the 2nd quarter (24-19 in 14 ‘). Svend kept CSKA Moscow upright (28-24 in 18 ‘), but the hosts had found a rhythm aggressively and with a partial 10-3, they closed the half with “air” of 11 points (38-27).
The 3rd period had a completely different form and unexpected protagonists. With Voigtman shooting from… everywhere and scoring 14 points in 3 minutes (!), the “army team” ran 18-2 and completely reversed the situation (43-45 in 24 ‘). With the confidence soaring, Itoudis ‘players dominated on both ends of the floor, while they reached up to +7 (45-52 in 27’).
On the other, the “blaugrana” had blocked aggressively and were trapped in the defensive “calipers” of the guests. CSKA Moscow continued to see the basket as a barrel and with an incredible buzzer beater three-pointer by Grigonis, closed the ten minutes with a difference of 9 points (51-60).
At the start of the 4th quarter, the guests escaped with +10 (51-61), but the Catalans reacted and with Mirotic increasing his performance vertically, they ran a series of 11-0 and went ahead (62-61 in 33 ‘). Sengelia responded with a three-pointer (62-64), however the hosts had found a rhythm and with 8-0, they gained a difference of victory (70-64 in 36 ‘).
In the last minutes, the players of Yasikevitsios they had cooler options and more solutions, while the guests ran out of strength. Somehow we reached the final 81-73, which gave a very important victory to Barcelona.
The quarters: 13-13, 38-27, 51-60, 81-73.
See here the statistics of the match
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