By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
FC Barcelona strolled by ALBA Berlin, 96-64, to tip off the 2021-22 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season and wrap up Regular Season Round 1 on Friday.
Nikola Mirotic led the way with a game-high 22 points at Palau Blaugrana. The experienced forward had averaged 18 points per ACB contest early in his third season after leaving the NBA and kept the hot streak going with 8/8 field goals, including 4/4 three-pointers. His 31 PIR marked another game-high.
“I am very happy and excited about this game. We were looking forward to playing our first EuroLeague game at home with our fans, and it was a really good job by the team, not allowing (ALBA) to score many points,” he said describing the contest, “We were huge on defense; everybody scored, everybody played well. So, it was a perfect beginning of the season. It is all about the team. It is always about my teammates and our coaching staff. It was just great to be back and enjoy this game that I love so much. I am very happy and this is just the beginning.”
Rokas Jokubaitis, 34th pick of the 2021 NBA draft with his NBA rights belonging to the New York Knicks, registered 12 points behind 5/5 field goals. Barcelona ended up at 61% from the two-point range and 66.7% from beyond the arc in the dominating display at home.
“I think that we were serious for very long periods of time. I think we understood how to attack ALBA in these situations. When they changed the defense a little bit, we adapted again. I think it was especially good because everybody played a lot of minutes,” claimed Sarunas Jasikevicius, “Right now, we have a little stretch of a lot of games in seven or eight days, and it is very important that we all play together. We all contributed.”
“We had an excellent fourth quarter,” added Jokubaitis, “As the coach said at halftime, we had to come prepared for the third quarter and they came back a little bit. We took their punch and it gave it back to them on double power.”
The Spanish champions reached the EuroLeague championship game last season. The sixth win in a row against ALBA produced a positive start to the next season.
Alex Abrines remained out. On the other end, Israel Gonzalez was left with 11 players in his head coaching debut in EuroLeague missing Kresimir Nikic, Christ Koumadje, Johannes Thiemann. and Stefan Peno, a former player of the Catalonia powerhouse.
“We are not 100% now,” admitted the visiting head coach, “We knew this before the game. We miss a lot of players, a lot of injured players, especially in the ‘five’ position.”
“We knew that it was going to be very difficult today but I think the team, in the beginning, was surprised by the level that Barcelona showed in the game,” he added, “We never stopped working and I am happy because we made Barcelona get 15 turnovers. We faced the second half with good energy. In fact, we won the third quarter and the team was trying to do the things they could. For that, we have to be a little happy about this. Of course, we are disappointed to lose, but our goal right now is to recover players, to improve, to do things better for the next games.”
Luke Sikma put up a 16-point, 10-rebound double-double at Barcelona. Maodo Lo followed with 12 points, ten in the first half.
The team led by Jasikevicius went from the 3-0 start in the ACB to 1-0 in EuroLeague. Surne Bilbao on the road follows on Sunday. EuroLeague Round 2 shifts Barca at FC Bayern Munich next Thursday.
The German champions, 1-1 in the new easyCredit BBL Season, will host LDLC ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne next Friday following a German Cup fixture versus Telekom Baskets Bonn on Sunday.
Photo Credit: Barca Twitter