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Barcelona decimated by injuries

Barcelona have had an unbelievable amount of bad luck this season. The last victim to that is Navarro, who is out with something that normally affects kinds and young people, not someone his age

ACB photo

No team is probably under as much pressure as Barcelona at the moment. Their horrible Euroleague performances have basically knocked them out from the race, which is why they now need to focus on domestic competitions to at least partly salvage the season. 

The task is all but easy. The amount of bad luck that has hit Barcelona this season is almost unbelievable. They will be without Rivas, Laval, Doellman today. Renfroe and Oleson are questionable. 

The most recently problem is Navarro, who is out with appendicitis. In our opinion, however, that can only be a good thing for Barca since he's been only ruining their game lately. 

- We expect a good defense, especially on our back court. That is why we need to play freely and use the room we get - Bartzokas said. 

We already warned about that problem a few times. When you have someone like Rice at point guard position, it's insane to constantly try and slow the game down. That is what Barca got lost in and that is why their offense is their biggest problems this season. Giving Rice carte blanche today would mean a lot for Barcelona. 

Doellman's absence could also be good news if they use Claver at four alongside Vezenkov. Claver and Perperoglou at forward positions would give Barcelona defense, rebounding and advantage over Unicaja in key segments of the game. 

Unicaja have no such injury struggles. They are ready and complete. There's been a clear improvement in form lately as well- They beat Real Madrid in the last game to end their 11-game winning run. That is the best possible thing that could have happened to them before this game. 

- It only proves we can play anyone. We don't care who the opponents are as long as we are focused for 40 minutes. We know there will be a lot of tricky, changes in defense and other things against Barca and we need to be focused for that. 

We say that in their only previous head-to-head of this season. It was 78-78 after regulation time and Unicaja went on to win it in overtime. Barca had basically settled the game but like so many times this season, they slipped in the end. This game is to take place on neutral grounds, which will add another level of excitement to it. Barca are decimated by injuries but let's not forget that they played the best game of the season with the same amount of problems to beat Real. Anything can happen here.