Barça assaults the Fonteta and defeats Valencia Basket
The brilliant defense of Barça, spiced up with good individual performances by Ronald Smits, Alex Abrines or Nick Calathes, gave him the victory this Tuesday on the court of a Valencia Basket to whom it was difficult to open a breach in the wall of the Catalan group, who ended up angry with the referees after losing his first game in the Euroleague.
The clash started with a thrilling scoring duel between Bojan Dubljevic and Smits, one on the inside and one on the outside, from which the Valencia. But when it seemed that the locals were in a position to open a small gap, the rotation stopped him and Barça, hand in hand with Calathes, was even able to reduce their disadvantage (19-16, m.10).
But Barça, although it came to draw with a triple by Abrines, did not complete the comeback because, although Calathes managed to dislodge the local defense, the progressive return of the starting teams reestablished the initial script.
The good direction of Guillem Vives allowed the locals, in a final minute full of errors by both sides, to reach the break from above (35-33, m.20).
The great defense of the Barça in the resumption made him take the lead for the first time by the hand of the clairvoyant Calathes. Valencia resisted with individual actions and a couple of counterattacks, after also improving behind, which allowed them to endure the exchange of blows for a few minutes.
But the departure of Abrines gave Barça the final push it needed to, keeping its spider web, take control of the shock and open a small gap that put the mental strength of the locals to the test (44-52, m.28).
Ponsarnau asked for a time out to try to redirect the situation but the partial 9-21 in the third quarter made the locals arrive very demanded at the beginning of the last quarter. In fact, the beginning of this partial only influenced the trend (44-59, m.31).
Valencia grabbed onto Van Rossom's leadership and Kalinic's effectiveness to narrow the score somewhat and shake off the feeling of helplessness. A more additional triple from the Serbian forward forced a tighter finish than expected (60-66, m.38), but an unsportsmanlike Hermannsson and a possible lack of Abrines
turned into a throw-in in favor of Barça, both revised and both highly protested, they gave Valencia the 'excuse' it needed to lose without having to do too much self-criticism.
- Data sheet:
66. Valencia Basket (19 + 16 + 9 + 22): Vives (7), Prepelic (6), Kalinic (13), Williams (7), Dubljevic (13) -five starters- Marinkovic (3), Labeyrie (5), Van Rossom (6), Tobey (2), San Emeterio (3) and Hermannsson (1).
71. Barça (16 + 17 + 21 + 17): Higgins (10), Hanga (2), Smits (15), Claver (4), Davies (11) -five starters- Heurtel (-), Oriola (4), Abrines (11), Kuric (-) and Calathes ( 14).
Referees: Christodoulou (GRE), Majkic (ESL) and Laurinavicius (LIT). Without eliminated.
Incidents: match corresponding to the third day of the regular phase of the Euroleague played in the municipal pavilion of the Fuente de San Luis played before 400 spectators, a capacity reduced due to health restrictions due to the coronavirus.
