Barcelona suffered to win in Belgrade. He achieved it despite his irregularity during the match. At 86-88, with 13 seconds remaining, the victory hung by a thread, and the ball went over the baseline, and was at the mercy of Maccabi, who got involved in the attack and caused a jump between two between Parker and Shayok. The Blaugrana won it and won the match.
Neither Maccabi nor Barcelona went out to the soulless Belgrade field, almost neutral ground, with the best feelings. The Israeli team sunk in the standings, far from the best, and the Blaugrana in a crisis of results, and after falling two days before at the OAKA Arena against Panathinaikos, after the general collapse in the last minutes, which with 29 points, underpinned the Greek victory.
Nor did the defeat in the ACB against Baxi Manresa contribute much to relying too much on Joan Peñarroya’s men, who have not yet reached their maximum revolutions, Brizuela, Metu and Neto for the rotations, arrived weakened at the Euroleague event.
Despite everything, Barça started well in Belgrade, dedicated in defense, cheerful in attack and opening a gap on the scoreboard. With the zone defense ordered by their coach, Maccabi did not play comfortably. Punter scored at the start, Parker supported him and then Vesely appeared. The Barça team was always ahead on the scoreboard, and they were nine points ahead, which went to six with the horn.
But in the second quarter Maccabi woke up and . The fuses blew. Without spectacular numbers, the Israeli team grew while Barcelona’s play decreased, it became tiny. With a partial score of 22-11, Maccabi took control of the game without finding a reaction from its rival, especially on the rebound. They added more in attack than in defense, which gave them double opportunities to score. The appearance of Blatt and Rivero were fundamental for their team. The Peñarroya players went crestfallen at halftime, presumably with the intention of redeeming themselves, after finishing with a run of 28-15 and only three scores from outside.
However, the reaction did not occur, at least at the beginning of the second half, which began with a triple by Blatt, which put a ten-point difference in their favor (47-37), but that action was only the beginning of a series of blunders by the Barça team, which allowed a 9-0 run that widened the gap for Maccabi. In an instant, the score went to 53-37, and the alarms went off on the bench. Anderson had to score a triple to relieve some of the sting and stop the bleeding.
Barcelona continued to have problems in defensive rebounding. The area they played with when the Israeli attack attacked hindered them in that aspect, and Maccabi continued to have two or even three chances to score. There was a lack of intensity in the game to match the rival. Barça at least managed to contain their opponent and in the second half of the third quarter, they returned in the opponent’s basket when they received in their own. It was reduced step by step, and with 2.30m remaining, an unsportsmanlike foul and a triple by Parker brought Barcelona closer to just four points (62-58), a difference that was reduced to two before the timeout that gave way to the decisive ten minutes (66-64).
At that moment a ten-minute match began to decide the winner, and in the positive dynamic that had taken place for the culés, first Hernangómez tied, smashing the hoop, and then, Parker, with a corner shot, put the team ahead again. Barcelona after many minutes. Punter’s solidity in shooting and Willy Hernangómez’s in rebounding began to pay off for his team. Also Satoransky’s points, decisive at times.
Barça played with more sense, although Maccabi relied on Blatt to not be left out of the game, his four triples out of seven attempts kept the match alive, but Parker insisted. His three-pointer extended the lead to four points (73-77), which is not a striking distance, but in view of what had been seen before, it was quite significant.
It was more difficult for Maccabi to defend. Fatigue was beginning to appear, and it was more difficult to do it without mistakes. Barcelona tried to extend the score, but the defensive rebound continued to punish them. The ball almost always fell into the hands of his rival. Although a triple by Juan Núñez extended the difference to five points (77-82), De Julius, in his first score, tied the game again. There were three minutes left, it was to start a clash again that was resolved with a jump between two in which Parker won to return the smile to Barça.
At the WiZink Center, Real Madrid could not stop Nigek Hayes-Davis, the essential man of Fenerbahçe (70-82), who played more than 37 minutes, scored 33 points, made six triples out of ten attempts and finished with a rating of 30. He was the catalyst for the Turkish game, which turned the score around in the second quarter. The first ended with a large lead for Real Madrid (20-12), but a 0-13 run in the second put Fenerbahçe ahead, who no longer gave up the baton. The score of 11-25 before the break sank Real. “Every time we have problems we collapse,” Chus Mateo confessed. “They have given us a lot of problems in defense and we have not been very clear-sighted. “We have not been able to.” The frustration was reflected in Mario Hezonja, disqualified for two techniques in the final stretch. With six wins and eight losses, it is far from the positions of the playoff.
For its part, Baskonia ended up losing (94-80) with a score that does not reflect what happened on the field, in a very close match that almost always ended after a 16-0 run for the Germans in a Baskonia slump. . Bayern’s punch decided.
