Barcelona chased away its ghosts and will face Christmas with a better face after its victory in Kaunas, worked with external success in the first minutes and defensive adjustments in the last quarter, when Zalgiris was ahead on the scoreboard. It was not a great game for Grimau's men, but they did play with the necessary character to win on the hot Lithuanian court, even though the local team has been going through a crisis of results since November.
After a disconcerting start, Barcelona recovered thanks to its attacking success, and resolved the first ten minutes with a significant difference in its favor (22-28), but it let itself go in defense in the second quarter of the match, and although He continued scoring, saw how Birutis and Ulanovas began to bombard his basket and Smits grabbed the rebound. Although he continued to dominate at halftime (51-56), things were not so clear, and even less so when the third quarter was clearly Zalgiris's, in defense and attack. Barça's shooters' hands began to shake and they reached a terrible statistic with no triple in eight attempts in the first minutes of the second half. Zalgiris took the lead (62-60), and continued to command the scoreboard for many minutes, until a triple by Brizuela restored peace to the Barça side (73-75). By then, Barcelona had already regained order, while Zalgiris showed signs of physical exhaustion, and perhaps also mental exhaustion after several consecutive defeats at home.
Laprovittola appeared, who became the top scorer (18 points), Vesely said; Kalinic and Parker created a wall on the rebound, and things began to work differently. “We had to make small defensive adjustments and maintain the attack,” Grimau acknowledged.
With 35 seconds left, with 80-81 on the scoreboard, Dimsa committed a foul in Zalgiris' hasty attack, Laprovittola scored both free throws (80-83), and in the next action, good defense by Barça prevented the local annotation. With 13 seconds in the light, Satoranski gave the sentence after another foul by Zalgiris (80-85), to get Barcelona out of the slump it had gotten into in recent days, and put it in second position in the standings. tied with Virtus Bologna.
In Istanbul, a gesture by Dusko Ivanovic was very significant. The Baskonia coach, not given to such gestures, turned to Markus Howard, when the American committed his fifth foul, and gave him a loving hug. His team won, already in the last minute, and his 28 points had been fundamental for his team's victory. Between him and Miller-Mcintyre they dismantled Efes (80-87). The game director of the Vitorian team was one rebound away from the triple double (14 points, 10 assists, 9 rebounds), something that no one has achieved in the Euroleague since Calates did it in 2019, the only time in the last 17 years of the tournament.
In a very even match until the last quarter, with successive ties and few advantages for each of the teams, Howard appeared in the final ten minutes, to shoot the difference up to eleven points and get back on track after the defeat in Belgrade before Macabbi. Baskonia is sixth now, with nine wins, and is in a good position to achieve its goal of being among the top eight.
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