Barça doesn’t measure up against Olympiacos | Sports| The USA Print

euroleague working day 27

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They have plenty of equipment and proven players, a squad that is the envy of many, almost everyone. He also has Mirotic, a player like no other. But it is not enough for Barça to say theirs when high-ranking matches arrive and that is how he explained it again against Olympiacos in Piraeus. Chameleonic because he was Doctor Jekyll at the beginning, with a basketball of many carats, he ended up melting down and becoming Mr Hyde in the end, a team that shows that only with Mirotic -also something from Laprovittola- it is not worth it. And, with Fenerbahçe just around the corner, as they battle this Friday, Barça lost second place in the Euroleague to the Greeks.

After the mess against Casademont Zaragoza, in which Barcelona sang the mea culpa After a disastrous combustion match and a blushing defeat, the Barça team arrived in Greece in, worried about recovering their color and clarifying that they have a team to fight for the Euroleague. Solid in their defense, intense, hands everywhere and breath on the neck, to the point that several shots came in the shadow of the horn, Barça expected Olympiacos to shiver before the basket, unable to make a basket until the fourth minute of the game. invite The same thing did not happen on the other side of the net, where Barça prevailed in the paint, Sanli exceptional in his fight with the tall Fall (2.18 meters) and exquisite Mirotic, perhaps because he did not like what the press suggested Greek during these days about the required role change between him and Vezenkov, until now the best player in the Euroleague -top scorer and rebounder-, a firm candidate for the laurel of MVP. But it was not Vezenkov’s night, a trigger in attack (13 points) and in defense, clumsy in his attempt to stop a Mirotic who repeated a play, the one that already appears in Jasikevicius’s books and that happens by grabbing his shoulder. rival to receive pumped passes and define under the basket. The candies, of course, come from a Laprovittola who sees the holes that others don’t even intuit, who understands basketball as a show. Just what Bartzokas -ex-Barça coach in the 2016-17 academic year- did not want to see, who could not digest his morrocotudo anger in the technical area, a good tantrum. And that’s where Barça ended.

Contrary to what usually happens to him, on this occasion the Barcelona wardrobe expressed that he lacks chicha for high-flying moments and, in this case, decibels; Few pavilions have so much echo and energy, a boiling pot that needs very little to activate. The Greek springboard was a triple by Larentzakis. And without Mirotic, Lapro or Sanli -reduced version against Vesely’s Olympiacos- on the track, culé basketball was over, since the score went from 11-22 to 23-22 (the first time the Greeks took the lead), French toast superlative that Olympiacos underlined and that Jasikevicius used desperately, arms raised and a crooked gesture, bellowing at his team to hit a triple -one of 13 attempts until the intermission- or, at least, not blanch so categorically on the rebound. But Mirotic, always the player with a cape, balanced the scores, 29-27 at halftime, defense party over attacks, sad seven Barca points in the second quarter.

Barça returned more toned in the shots from the perimeter, already with Laprovittola dressed as a sniper. But that was not a challenge that worried Olympiacos, with Mckissic and Papanikolaou inspiring, the team also more energetic because they moved their feet and the ball at great speed. Too much for the Catalans, with cold sweats to stop the rival arreones and out of tune from the free kick line, also in shots from medium distance. Although none worse than Kalinic, who made an ode to stubbornness and disaster, two of nine attempts in the triples. Thus, although stunned, Barcelona reached the last quarter alive (50-45) and once again delayed Olympiacos from afar. And Mckissic and Larentzakis raised their voices and level, also at last Vezenkov, who celebrated his triple with rage and with his fist in the air, with a liberating cry. More than anything because his team won without having the best version of him; the opposite of Mirotic, who did throw Barça but lost, aware that with the remaining seasoning it is not worth it and that it does not reach him for great successes, he has already fallen in the Super Cup and the Cup, far from giving the stature when the situation demands.

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