By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
With an 85-71 win over Valencia Basket in the last round of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague regular season, FC Barcelona climbed up to second place in the standings.
Sarunas Jasikevicius’ team improved to 23-11, the same as Real Madrid, but got over the Spanish champions thanks to a better head-to-head record.
Alex Abrines led Barcelona with 15 points, six assists, and three rebounds for a PIR 23. He shot 5-7 from beyond the arc on his 500th match in Blaugrana jersey.
“I think it’s a good way to end the regular season, and now we want more. Of course, you don’t play every day your 500th game with a club like Barcelona, and I’m pretty honored for the confidence they put in me, and I hope I can play more games. I don’t know if there will be another 500 games, but some more,” Abrines said.
Nikola Mirotic scored 18 points, while Jan Vesely added 13 points with six rebounds. Sertac Sanli almost reached a double-double with nine points and eight rebounds.
For Valencia, only Jared Harper got a double-digit performance with 14 points.
Convincing win despite 21 turnovers
It wasn’t the night to remember since Barcelona didn’t control the ball as it would like, hence the 21 turnovers. Still, Sarunas Jasikevicius’ players got the job done again.
“We were speaking with the coach, we are breaking records. It’s not easy to win a game with 20+ turnovers. We were sloppy in some things, not sharing the ball around, but we managed to win. It’s always good to end in a winning way. Last week was tough for us, but we have to forget about those things and keep working. We showed that we forgot it, and we played the game the way it should be played,” Jan Vesely noted in the post-match interview.
Barcelona had control from early on, grabbing a double-digit 22-12 lead in the last minutes of the first quarter, but Valencia responded with a 9-2 run to close off the period. The guests gave a good fight until halftime, despite being in a double-digit deficit on a couple of occasions, but managed to go cut it in the final moments, as Barca went to the break with a 51-46 lead.
The third quarter seemed to be the key since Barcelona stayed in control and entered the final 10 minutes with a 72-61 surplus. Still. Alex Mumbru’s guys gave one last push midway through the final 10 minutes and got within six points, but that was it. Barcelona finished off the match with an 11-3 run to grab a valuable victory.
“They had some very good moments in the last minutes when it was closer. We managed to get closer to 6 points, but finally, they scored two or three baskets in a row and destroyed all our chances to win the game,” the Valencia head coach, Alex Mumbru, said after the match.
Since Zalgiris defeated Bayern in Munich, Barcelona will face the Kaunas team in the playoffs, starting on April 25, to May 10.
“We are second in the regular season, not much to be sad about. Now we have to prepare ourselves first and go into the playoffs with a great mentality,” Jasikevicius said.