By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Five players in double figures, near-perfect execution on offense that was translated to the team’s (any team’s in the 2020-2021 EuroLeague) top-scoring output this season and 31 assists. Coach Sarunas Jasikevicius couldn’t have been much more pleased with the performance of Barcelona in the 103 – 69 away win over Alba Berlin for Round 7 of the EuroLeague regular season.
Alex Abrines got hot early, scoring 14 points on 4-4 triples in a row in the first period out of his 17 overall in the first period. Nikola Mirotic dropped a game-high 18 points, Rolands Smits scored 13, Pierre Oriola posted 12 points and six rebounds and Cory Higgins added 11 points for Barca. Nick Calathes dished out 12 assists in just 18:25 minutes.
“I think we took this game very seriously. Obviously, every game is very important. We had a great offensive night on three-pointers, everyone scored, we shared the ball great,” Mirotic said.
Alba Berlin, that played its first game in three weeks following a coronavirus outbreak on the team, was overwhelmed 18 – 30 following Abrines’ fiery entrance and went down 36 – 56 at halftime, never to recover. Simone Fontecchio had 17 points, Ben Lammers scored 12 and Luke Sikma notched 11 points and six rebounds.
“We will focus on getting back into a rhythm because the two weeks without training obviously were tough for us,” Lammers said.
“Defensively strange”
While Jasikevicius obviously liked what he saw from his players on the offensive end, he didn’t think that the defensive effort was equally strong. He also admitted that his team would face more pressure if Alba didn’t come from a long of inactivity.
“We played really well offensively whenever we did not turn the ball over, and defensively it was kind of a strange night for us,” Jasikevicius said. “We were really up and down defensively, ALBA had a lot of really good looks. Basically, we caught a team that is not in the best shape right now
Photo: EuroLeague Basketball