Barça ensures the home court factor with the win against Red Star

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  • The azulgrana team suffered to close the game after a splendid first half (82-70)

  • Mirotic acted as leader in a team that included Exum’s leading role in solving

The Barca regained the path of victory in the Euroleague with a hard-fought win against Estrella Roja (82-70) and, what is more important, he ensured home court advantage, a decisive aspect with four games to go before the play-offs. mirotic, with 19 points and 4 rebounds in 22 minutes, he re-emerged as the leader of the azulgrana team, which shone in a splendid first half, but had to grit their teeth and suffer to close out the victory. The appearance of exum in the last quarter it was key to avoid the surprise.

“We played excellently in the first half but we know that they are a quality rival and that they would complicate our lives, although the important thing in the end is that we have secured victory”, he admitted. mirotic. “We have played 25 spectacular minutes, although sometimes we lack a bit of killer instinct & rdquor ;, he complained Jasikevicius.

The last minute drop Sertaç Sanli, Due to back pain, he raised Barça’s demands even more against a rival who is in great form and still dreams of entering a ‘final four’ that has moved to his city, Belgrade.

The Red Star demonstrated the reasons for his progress in recent days (he arrived at the Palau with four consecutive wins). And his defensive consistency complicated the first minutes, forcing several losses in the azulgranas. But the team of Jasikevicius managed to repair his initial mistakes with a superb performance by mirotic in the first quarter that broke the apparent initial balance.

Second quarter of manual

With 13 points without fail, the Spanish international unblocked Barça’s attacking systems thanks to his good connection with Calathes. With mirotic unleashed, the team gained in confidence and opened the first important gap on the scoreboard (22-15, m. 10) that only widened with the bench rotations. The consistency in defense was maintained in the Catalan team and the direction of Jokubaitis gave the team one more speed. The 21-year-old Lithuanian point guard, who continues to grow by leaps and bounds this season, did almost everything right.

Thus, from the bounce control, with a Davis overwhelming in the zone, and the dazzling transitions of Jokubaitis (between the two they added 20 of the 25 points of the quarter), the Barca settled for quite a few minutes with a favorable margin of 20 points, although Red Star managed to reduce damage at halftime (47-32).

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The team of dejan radoncic He improved his performance after the restart, especially on a defensive level. He took another step on a physical level and increased his intensity in each action, complicating the scenario for Barça, who began to suffer to add to the attack.

The change paid dividends to the Red Star, who turned the match around with a 2-12 run with which he improved feelings and regained confidence. Doubts increased for Barça in the last period with a partial 2-8 start that tightened the scoreboard to the maximum, with Nikola Ivanovich assuming the leading role of the Serbs in each attack. But faced with the success of the Serbian shooting guard, the talent of exum. The brazenness of the Australian foreigner appeared providential for Barça and with 13 of the team’s 17 points in that period, it ended up closing the victory.

FC Barcelona, ​​82 – Red Star, 70

FC Barcelona: Calathes (6), Laprovittola (3), Exum (13), Mirotic (19), Smits (8) –first five- Martínez (-), Abrines (2), Kuric (3), Davies (12), Jokubaitis ( 10), Nnaji (2), Hayes (6)

6 of 17 triples (Jokubaitis, 2), 25 rebounds, 4 offensive (Davies, 6), 21 assists (Calathes, 7)

Red Star: Wolters (4), Kalinic (5), Dobric (17), Dadidovac (2), Mitrovic (9), –starting five- Ivanovic (13), Lazic (-), Markovic (7), White (4), Kuzmic (5), Lazarevic (4).

4 of 16 triples (Dobric, 2), 33 rebounds, 16 offensive (Mitrović, 6), 15 assists (Wolters, 4)

Partials: 22-15; 25-17; 18-19; 17-19



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