By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Jabari Parker hit two winning free throws with the score tied at 80 against Olympiacos Piraeus to hand Barcelona an 82 – 80 overtime win. The Blaugrana made it 1-2 in the series with Game 4 taking place Thursday (2/5) in the same arena.
Parker won the shooting foul by Filip Petrusev on a 3-point attempt with less than a second left on the overtime clock.
There seemed to be contact, even minimal, with the left hand of Petrusev to the right elbow of Parker. “If in the last shot of the game, somebody is shooting the ball and he jumps… he is from there to there… it is questionable, it was a foul that decided the game, the whole game,” losing head coach Giorgos Bartzokas attempted to recreate the deciding play.
“Of course, we made some mistakes at the end. We allowed three open shots. They made everything because they have a good team. The last call,” added the Greek play-caller on his way out of a flash interview, “I can not criticize this.”
Czech connection for Barcelona
“I am proud of my team that we stayed in the game mentally. It was a very difficult game. We were up in a lot of moments of the game. They came back with their hustle again. It looked like we lost the game, but we stayed calm,” noted Tomas Satoransky after producing a team-high performance index rating of 20 for the visitors. The Czech guard piled up 13 points, five assists, and four rebounds in Game 3.
Fellow Czech import of the Catalonia giant and all-time Turkish Airlines EuroLeague leader in two-pointers, Jan Vesely tallied a team-high 16 points behind 7/16 from inside the arc. “We know how difficult it is to play on this court. And they played a very physical game,” he reacted to the narrow win in Peace and Friendship Stadium.
Parker ended up with 13 more points for the team coached by Roger Grimau. Two more double-digit scorers with Willy Hernangomez putting up 13 points and Nicolas Laprovittola following with 12 points.
In a new personal best for the 2023-24 season, Petrusev logged a game-high 18 points in a losing effort for the Reds. Moses Wright was up to 16 points and eight rebounds until suffering an injury late in the extra period. Missing a third straight game against his former team, captain Kostas Papanikolaou was a late scratch.
“The question about my feelings has no answer, you can understand,” was the immediate reaction of Bartzokas to the overtime loss.