Euroleague working day 26
Without messing up. The Barça players almost did not have to use the 200 liters of water per head to shower, which are established by the anti-drought regulations. They barely broke a sweat. This is how Barcelona beat Alba Berlin (93-77), which they let loose in the first quarter, allowing them to run, throw and get excited about giving Grimau’s team a pinch. But not. The 31-26 score in the first quarter, in which no one defended anything, was a mirage. Those ten minutes of Globetrotters basketball, with spectacle, easy shots from distance, runs and open heart baskets, which the stands may like, but the coaches very little, were over quickly.
Those five points of difference with which Barça went to the meeting between the two periods, including the advantage that Israel González’s team acquired (31-34), after a partial score of 0-8, at the beginning of the second quarter, They were unreal. So when Grimau saw that the set was beginning as cheerfully as the first, he ordered a stop, ran out a timeout when three minutes had passed and asked his players to get serious in defense, since he was already done with the jokes, and that that was the Euroleague. The Barça attitude, without any anger from the coach, but just dots over the i’s, changed as if from night to day.
That very unfavorable partial at the beginning of the second quarter was transformed into a favorable 15-2, based on pressing under their own rim, and the clarifications in attack so that Laprovittola hit two consecutive triples and Da Silva added another one for the cause. Barça began to work intensively on defense and dismantle the German team, not allowing them the licenses they had given them at the beginning, and Alba never recovered. Like a hammer, Barça improved its numbers up and down, in rebounds and shooting. Or in assists (23 to Alba’s 11). German hope vanished immediately. At 1.14m until the end of the third quarter, the difference was 31 points (78-47). Alba only scored 12 points in that period and it could be said that the game was already over. Oscar Da Silva’s effectiveness in rebounding (10, seven of them in attack), and Hernangómez’s power under the basket (18 points) decided the game for Barcelona, which simply applied logic against an inferior team in resources and template. With the game already decided, Alba made up the score somewhat in the last quarter, in which Barcelona once again gave them permission, who raised their foot, to get the same points (26) as in the opening ten minutes.