By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Barcelona ended the winning streak of Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul with an 81-80 triumph in Palau Blaugrana. Sarunas Jasikevicius’s team got their fourth win of the season (4-2), while Fenerbahce lost after a 5-0 start.
Nicolas Laprovittola had a great game with 26 points and seven assists.
Once more the Argentian guard proved to be the most important player of Barcelona in a duel with his former teammate, Nick Calathes, who moved to Fenerbahce.
“We continue on our way”, said Laprovittola after the game. “All the credit goes to my teammates and the coach. They trust me and I try to play well for them.”
Nikola Kalinić also scored some important points in crucial moments of the match and ended up being the second scorer of the winning team with 14 points. Mike Tobey scored eight of his 13 points in the third quarter.
Jonathan Motley led the Turkish team with 23 points and eight rebounds, but only Marko Gudurić and Melih Mahmutoglu followed him with 11 points each.
However, in the final possession, while Fenerbahce had the chance with a three to tie the game, Motley dunked the ball. “Motley was aware we needed a three, I guess he felt he didn’t have the shot”, said Fenerbahce coach Dimitris Itoudis after the game.
“The good thing today was that we never gave up”, added Itoudis. “The result could have been different but as I said, Barcelona deserved to win today. It was another lesson for us. It should not be forgotten that we are a new team and we need to learn every lesson we can from every match, and every training session. EuroLeague is a marathon, competition is high”.
With a 14-2 run in the middle of the third period, Barcelona took a 60-44 lead, but it wasn’t enough to put the game to bed.
Fenerbahce answered in the final period, cutting the lead to only two points in the final minute, but Barca fought off their great run thanks to Kalinic‘s triple with 36 seconds to go pushing their lead back to five (81-76).
“We knew we would have a hard time today, Fenerbahçe is a great team”, said Barcelona coach Sarunas Jasikevicius. “You have to play such matches with the same concentration for 40 minutes. If this game had been played one more minute, we might not have won. We shouldn’t be that kind of team. However, we are still at the beginning of the season and we have to focus on the positives. It is good that we are the first team to beat Fenerbahce. However, we are only in November and the season has just begun.”