By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Nikola Mirotic notched game-highs 21 points, 15 rebounds (a career-high) and 33 PIR as Barcelona defeated Olympiacos Piraeus 90 – 80 to capture its fifth straight EuroLeague win and improve to 13-3.
“I am very happy,” Mirotic said to EuroLeague TV. “The team played great defense all 40 minutes. We did what we were supposed to do, getting back in transition, controlling the rebounds, and playing our game on offense. Sometimes when you take your shots the ball does not go in. It is just a matter of keep shooting. But we came with much more confidence in the third quarter, we executed well our offense. A big in for us.”
Kyle Kuric added 18 points and Adam Hanga 14 for Barcelona that dominated their opponents in the second half of the game. The Blaugrana pulled off consecutive defenses that were translated into baskets on the other end to make a 12-0 run in two minutes for a 56 – 43 lead in the mid of the third period when coach Svetislav Pesic was expelled at that moment after being called with consecutive technical fouls.
This didn’t change anything though since Barcelona proceeded to retain a double-digit advantage. With five minutes to play, Malcolm Delaney was fouled on a 3-point attempt and handed his team its first 20-point lead in the match, 80 – 60. The Nikola Milutinov-less Olympiacos, that had previously come back from a 10-point deficit in the first period to take a 31 – 36 lead with less than two minutes left for halftime, wouldn’t recover this time.
Willie Reed had a season-high 15 points while Kostas Papanikolaou posted 14 points plus five rebounds while Sasha Vezenkov dropped 14 points as well for Olympiacos that dropped to 6 – 8.
Olympiacos captain Vassilis Spanoulis needed 12 points in the match to pass Barcelona legend Juan Carlos Navarro and become EuroLeague’s all-time leading scorer but finished with two in 12:33. The former MVP will have the opportunity to claim the top of the list on January 2 against a desperate to win Fenerbahce Beko in Piraeus.
Turning the switch at halftime
Barcelona coach Pesic emphasized on how different his team’s approach was after the return from the locker room. “We were lucky because basketball is four quarters, and we had a third-quarter that was like a test for us, to see if we could improve our game,” Pesic said in the post-game presser. “We had 3 turnovers in the second half and 10 in the first half. It is not possible to play well if you have 10 turnovers in 20 minutes. The game was up and down, but one more time, we scored 90 points in the EuroLeague, which is not an easy job. We scored 90 points but they scored 20 points in transition and I didn’t like this. In the third and fourth quarters, we understood that we needed to play without turnovers.
Photo: EuroLeague Basketball