• Euroleague: Valencia succumbs to Madrid's frenzy and Campazzo's record

Barça had to suffer more than expected to resume the path of victory in the Euroleague. A new great performance by Mirotic, the undisputed figure of the Catalans, who joined this time a much more toned Tomic than in their last games, led the Pesic to add a victory much more worked than promised First part of the duel. [94-102: Narration and statistics]

In the first two quarters the Barcelona players scored 31 and 30 points, respectively, but were surprised almost at the last minute by a Khimki who, hand in hand with Shved, and with an almost surgical aim in the triples, managed to placed only three points away at the last minute of the match (94-97). The providential appearance of the Montenegrin Hispanic, who would end the match with 28 points and 30 valuation , and a late triple launch of Delaney, despite everything, finally secured the triumph for a team that suffered a very hard corrective against the CSKA of Moscow in the Palau Blaugrana last week.

Not only Mirotic and Tomic would be decisive. Throughout the game they would also end up contributing their grain of sand Hanga and Kuric . The Catalans signed a very promising start. Not only did they manage to prevent the Khimki from scoring almost until the middle of the period, but they were also able to punish him hard with a 0-11 run that seemed to give way to a new ride in Europe. Nothing is further from reality. The Russians, hand in hand with Shved, but also with a very toned Booker, were able to crack the defensive solidity of those of Pesic. However, everything good they managed to do in the rival basket did not have its corresponding reflection in their own. Mirotic, almost as usual, shone with own light among the Catalans, capable of showing a choral game that locals did not know how to neutralize. The exchange of blows between them justified the 22-31 with which it was reached at the end of the period, with tremendous positive feelings for visitors.

It didn't matter that Mirotic faltered a little in the second quarter. Nor that the Khimki seemed able, for a moment, to climb the beards of Barça. Kuric, in this case, and Hanga managed to respond to the efforts of Shved and Booker by the Russians so that things did not go to their mother. Again, they showed their best galas in attack. And, again, too, they accused their tremendous defensive fragility. The team of Svetislav Pesic came to leave by a difference of 19 points on the scoreboard when half of the quarter was still missing, but saw how his opponent managed again to narrow things by dragging the visitors towards a hit, dizzying game, in which it feels like a fish in water. The Catalans, again, punished their defensive fragility and pointed to a partial scandal scandal (26-30). But for the Russians, in addition, it was that Booker would also leave for the break with four personnel under his belt. Something that, added to the 48-61 that showed the luminous, did not leave them too much hope to turn the tortilla around in the resumption.

Mirotic, for a moment, seemed to lose the north, but Pesic managed to regain his best version by saving him the bench when he accumulated a couple of consecutive failures. The excellent reading of the psychological moment of his star by the technician would also be essential for him to recover his best version after the break. The Khimki, for the first time, would manage in this period so that the Catalans were not placed in 30 points. But, on the other hand, they failed to prevent the partial from being favorable again to those of Pesic, no matter how much Shved, again shone with his own light among his ranks. If they threatened to cut the distances too much, those of Pesic put the points back on them. Delaney, for example, did not hurt clothes when answering the excellent aim of the premises from beyond the line of 6.75.

If Shved was able to leave at the last and final period with 23 points under his belt, Mirotic was able to leave with 20. And in the case of the Montenegrin Hispanic, much better accompanied than in the Khimki star. Five Barcelona players reached the last quarter with ten or more points, while only Russians Booker, Evans and, in part, Jovic seemed able to withstand the pull of visitors. Three free throws for the former Real Madrid player, when the locals were placed ten points away, again opened the gap in the scoreboard, to the despair of a deadly team in attack, but brittle as the crystal in defense. And even then, he would finally be able to squeeze things and send the end of the game to a kind of exchange of blows in which he always feels inexplicably comfortable. More than that. He was able to reach the final moments of the game with serious options to snatch the triumph of Pesic, placing only three points away from Barcelona a few moments before the end of the match. His good hand in the triples helped them put the match in a fist ... A situation in which to look for Mirotic, as the visitors did, almost always guarantees success. A success that would be riveted in extremis with a new almost unlikely triple by Delaney (94-102).

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