Barca don’t do everything they can to beat Alba in Berlin | Basketball | Kinds of sports
Without bothering. Barça’s players barely had to use the 200 liters of water per capita required by drought rules for showers. They barely broke a sweat. This is how Barcelona beat Berlin’s Alba (93-77), which they released in the first quarter, allowing them to run, shoot and enjoy the opportunity to give the advantage to Grimau’s team. But no. The score 31-26 in the first quarter, in which no one defended anything, was a mirage. Those ten minutes of Globetrotters basketball, with the spectacle, the easy long-range shots, the runs and the open-hearted goals that the stands may have liked, but the coaches very little liked, were quickly over.
The five points difference with which Barça entered the match between the two periods, including the lead that Israel Gonzalez’s team acquired (31-34), after a partial score of 0-8 at the beginning of the second quarter, was unreal. Therefore, when Grimau saw that the set was starting as vigorously as the first, he ordered a stop, after three minutes had passed, he called a time out and asked his players to take defense seriously, since he was already done with jokes, and this was it Euroleague. Barça’s mood, without any anger on the part of the coach, but only with the i’s dotted, changed as if from day to day.
This very unfavorable intermediate result at the beginning of the second quarter was converted into a favorable score of 15-2, based on pressing under his ring and refinements in attack, so that Laprovittola hit two threes in a row and Da Silva added another for the purpose. Barça began to work hard on defense and dismantle the German team, not giving them the licenses they were given at the beginning, and Alba never recovered. Like a hammer, Barça improved their numbers up and down, in rebounds and shots. Or in terms of assists (23 versus 11 for Alba). The Germans’ hope instantly disappeared. At 1.14 before the end of the third quarter, the difference was 31 points (78-47). Alba scored only 12 points during that period, and one could say that the game was already over. Oscar Da Silva’s efficiency in rebounding (10, seven of them offensive) and Hernangomez’s power under the basket (18 points) decided the outcome of the game for Barcelona, which simply applied logic against a team inferior in resources and template. With the game already decided, Alba somewhat leveled the score in the final quarter, in which Barcelona once again allowed them, with their feet up, to score the same number of points (26) as in the first ten minutes.
You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes at Facebook And Xor register here to receive our weekly newsletter.