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Basketball » Euroleague (M), 21. round
02.02.2017. 19:00 Finished
Zalgiris - Barcelona (89:85)

Barcelona snapped out of it this weekend

  • Published:

Beating Baskonia in Vitoria could wake Barcelona up and get them out of the crisis, but they'll need Tyrese Rice to perform great - he's riddled with all of the offense organization burden

After two big Euroleague wins, against CSKA and Darussafaka, Zalgiris were unexpectedly beaten in the road game against Lietkabelis on Monday. Lietkabelis aren't a bad opponent, quite the contrary, but Zalgiris are a favorite in all the national championship games, so this can be seen as a blunder that the coach Jasikevicius tried to justify by saying:

- We've watched the video of the game again and made the players realize we didn't respond to their physical and dirty game. If we want to a real team, we have to get even for things like those.

Another physical game is expected today, so we'll see if Zalgiris learned their lesson. If they play the defense like they did in the last two Euroleague games, they'll be close to winning, and the point guards will have to be the key defensively. Pangos represented them to the press:

- We had some good periods in the first game, but we didn't play the defense well enough. We lacked aggressiveness and we have to change that today. They're extremely talented, and especially dangerous on my position with Rice there, one of the best players in the Euroleague.

But, even Rice isn't helping Barcelona that much this season. Barcelona never played the Euroleague this badly, and this is one of their last chances to join the fight for the playoffs. They have the worst offense in the Euroleague right now (72.4 points per game), which is almost unbelievable when you see what kind of players they've got.

But, the coach Bartzokas is partly to blame for that - we think he slowed their game down too much, and that loses comparative advantages he'd usually have with players like Rice, Koponen, Claver or Doellman. 

We've seen what it looks like when he lets his team run faster this Sunday in Vitoria. Baskonia sped the game up, and Barcelona loved it, hitting 92 points on the road, showing they didn't forget how to play. Rice directed their game, as expected, hitting 17 points with eight assists, and Ante Tomić finally woke up, hitting 21 points with five rebounds.

He was in a kind of a crisis ever since Faverani came, and without his real contribution, Barcelona's game suffered, especially offensively. This win improved the atmosphere in the team, and the coach Bartzokas admitted it:

- We feel a bit better after the last win. We can still get to the playoffs and we'll fight till the end for that goal. We need a great performance to beat Zalgiris on the road.

Barcelona played then 21 times since 2000, winning 19 games, clearly dominating. But they never played this weak, and we'll see if they can continue the positive tradition. 

The injuries are a traditional problem by now. The last victim was the Finn Koponen, but he took the trip with the team and will likely play. Bartzokas said that's really important:

- Things are a little weird right now because we're missing our two best defensive players, but I've seen much bigger desire and determination at the practices, and that makes me happy.

With Ribs, Renfroe and Oleson's injuries, Barcelona will struggle with the backcourt today, where everything depends on Rice. Navarro can't play over 20 minutes, Claver and Perperoglu can't create almost anything at the three, and Koponen is injured. So, what Rice does will be what Barcelona does in Kaunas.

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Zalgiris Barcelona
Absent players
  • Ribas, Lawal, Oleson, Renfroe, Koponen?

Tyrese Rice Player total points 15.5 tip: Over   Ino
Odds Stake Min. odds Last margin Bookmaker
1.71 5/10 - 18.5 Bet365
Rice's games can be divided into two eras. The one before Renfroe came when he was the only point guard and the one after the American came 10 rounds in. I'm saying that because his minutes and points were very different. He went over this margin in 6-9 games from the first era (stayed under only due to bad shooting against UNICS, Zvezda, and Olympiacos). Those are clearly teams that play brilliant defense. Rice still took his share of shots. Then along came Renfroe so Rice started share his minutes with him. Rice went over the margin only twice in the next 11 games. But that is not relevant because Renfroe adn Oleson were on the team back then. They are gone now and Ribas won't play either. That means that the backcourt is relying on Rice, Navarro (who can play only 20 minutes), Koponen, who is injured and that's it. That means it will all come down to Rice, who needs to take matters into his own hands. He heeds to take some 15-20 shots which is no problem for him. Zalgiris, to make things even better, is not good at defending point guards. Lekavicius, Pangos, Westermann are horrible in defense, the centers are too slow for Rice. That allowed the American to hit 20 points (4-dor-11) in the first game. Oleson played that game for 28 minutes. Rice was always the man for the big games and he knows the team expects him to step it up today. I cannot imagine him getting limited to under 20 points today.
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