Barça overwhelms Tenerife with a third quarter record
The Barça destroyed (112-69) Lenovo Tenerife in the first match of the Endesa League semifinals with a perfect third quarter in which Sarunas Jasikevicius they scored 40 points, a new record in history of the playoffs and in that of the Catalan club.
The third quarter, as already happened in the third game against Joventut, was the one that decided the game for Barça, with eleven shots from the field and four consecutive free throws after the break that led to a great second half with 69 points , the same as his rival throughout the 40 minutes.
The The success of the Catalans' triples was what unbalanced the game. After scoring only one of the first ten he tried, Barça added 16 of the next 22 to get 17 with all their players except Westermann and Oriola without adding from the 6.75 line.
Equality was the keynote of a first quarter in which Barça's 1 of 10 triples prevented him from being the owner of the game. Calathes, who came out in the starting five, and Mirotic were the best in attack for Barça while Lenovo Tenerife, well led by Fitipaldo, the points were more distributed.
Bolmaro's defense over Fitipaldo at the beginning of the second period caused several losses to Tenerife and Barça's first attempt to take off after a triple by Kuric (30-24, min. 15).
The Canarian team did not lose their calm and a 2-9 partial put them ahead again (32-33, min. 18) with Shermadini and Doornekamp solving the attacks.
Barça tried again with Hanga bothering the Tenerife bases and Kuric scoring from 6.75. Two free throws by Gasol put a new maximum difference (41-34, min. 20) that Hanga kept at halftime (43-30) by scoring two free throws.
The Barça's third quarter start was devastating for Lenovo Tenerife. Mirotic and Gasol, with a triple each, added nine points and threw their team. In five minutes, the Catalans were up 20 points (66-46) while Guerra was the only one who scored for the Tenerifeans.
The triples fell in the ring of Tenerife. Mirotic was relieved by Smits and this by Bolmaro and Kuric until Barça added seven of seven attempts to go up to thirty points of difference (81-51, min. 29).
The Barça did not lift the foot of the accelerator in the fourth period. Abrines joined the triples party and the difference shot up to 43 points with 101-58 when there were still more than four minutes to go and a difference that he maintained until the end.
On Wednesday Both teams will meet again in Tenerife with the very grown Barça players and eager to sentence the tie and the Tenerife with much to recover mentally after the harsh punishment received.
Data sheet
112. Barça (18 + 25 + 40 + 29): Calathes (8), Higgins (2), Abrines (5), Mirotic (21), Davies (8) -starting team-, Westermann (2), Hanga (5), Bolmaro (17), Smits (10), Gasol (11), Oriola (2) and Kuric (13)
69. Lenovo Tenerife (18 + 18 + 18 + 15): Fitipaldo (5), Jenkins (6), Cavanaugh (6), Doornekamp (7), Shermadini (8) -starting team-, Yusta (-), Huertas (12), Salin (6), Rodríguez (5), Sulejmanovic (-) and Guerra (14).
Referees: García, Calatrava and Caballero. They eliminated Leo Westermann (min. 37) and Roland Smits (min. 40) by five personnel.
Incidents: first match of the Endesa League semifinals played at the Palau Blaugrana in front of about 1,000 spectators.
