By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
FC Bayern Munich lived to fight another day in the quarterfinals matchup against FC Barcelona by grabbing a 59-52 victory at home in Game 4 to tie the series and send it back to Barcelona next week for Game 5.
The German side took an early lead in a tough and physical game to stay up 36-25 at halftime and even extended it to 14 points in the third quarter. Stunned Barcelona couldn’t score a basket for nearly six minutes into the second half, allowing Bayern to completely control the tempo and even extend its advantage to 19 points. The visitors rushed back in the fourth quarter but it was too late to cover the deficit.
“Of course I’m very proud, very happy for my players”, said coach Andrea Trinchieri post-game. “We played unbelievable defense, we won without scoring open shots, and that is credit to my players for how they played 40 minutes of really great defense”.
Nick Weiler-Babb posted 14 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists to lead Bayern, Othello Hunter added 9 points and 4 rebounds, while Vladimir Lucic had 8 points and 4 rebounds.
On the other end of the court, Alex Abrines scored 12 points to lead Sarunas Jasikevicius’ squad. Rokas Jokubaitis tapped 8 points and Nikola Mirotic left the court with 7 points and 5 rebounds.
“I feel so bad that we changed our face in 48 hours”, Jasikevicius commented. “For everything we did right 48 hours ago, today we did a lot of things wrong. On top of that, it was one of those nights where everything around the basket or the three-point line, we could not put the ball in the basket, with incredibly bad luck. So we need to regroup.”
Bayern has advanced to the EuroLeague quarterfinals for the second consecutive year and will look for an upset next week in order to advance to the Final Four for the first time in their history. Barcelona will play in front of its home crowd in Game 5 and seeks to return to the Final Four stage for the second year in a row, to face archrivals Real Madrid in Semifinal A.
Photo credit: EuroLeague