By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Euroleague’s opener featured Hapoel IBI Tel Aviv, one of the new faces of Europe’s best competition, and the match against Barça did not disappoint and finished with a huge W for the Israeli team (103-87).
Antonio Blakeney (20 points), Vasilije Micic (18 points), and Dan Oturu (18 points and 4 rebounds) were absolutely unstoppable, dominating the floor since the beginning of the match, which was even after the first quarter (26-26), but had only one leader after that moment.
Hapoel Tel Aviv had no problem extending the lead to double digits after half-time (51-45) and managed to get a very convincing win and a huge average against Barça.
Will Clyburn is just not enough
It was crystal clear that it wasn’t Barça’s night, but at least there is some good news for the Catalan side. Will Clyburn (23 points and 7 rebounds) made his debut with the blaugrana shirt, putting up a show, being the only player who showed up during the whole game, as only Kevin Punter (13 points) and Jan Vesely (13 points) finished in double digits when it comes to scoring.
Despite a late run (96-79 to 96-87) in just a couple of minutes, winning was never an option for Barça, who will need to improve a lot in order to compete in the Telekom Center Athens against Panathinaikos.