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Rimas Kurtinaitis, who is living through a nightmare season, was once again without a full lineup: Greg Monroe, sitting on his suitcases, and Jonas Jerebko and Janis Timma, who are in an uncertain situation, did not play.
Šarūnas Jasikevičius did not have the two greats Nikola Mirotičius and Brandonas Davies at his disposal, but Barcelona won the fight by balls 44-22.
After two halves, the Catalan team led 54:48 in the offensive gender duel, and after a long break they showed a completely different face in defense, missing just 27 points and achieving a resounding victory.
Nick Calathes, who scored 8 points but had 15 assists and achieved this season’s league record, played a fantastic game.
“Congratulations to the Barça club and coach Šarūnas Jasikevičius with good games and victory,” said Rimas Kurtinaitis after the defeat. – The game was not bad, especially as far as defense is concerned. But we had serious problems in the fight for bounced balls. The opponents thus created 22 additional attacks. That was the key to Barcelona’s victory. “
Eleven defeats in a row in the Euroleague is the worst result for Lithuanian coaches in the history of the tournament. The absolute record is held by clubs London Towers (2000-2001) and Bamberg Brose (2012-2013), who have lost 14 times in a row.
“We had good training sessions, but we can’t stay focused for 40 minutes,” Kurtis said. – We were preparing for a duel and we knew how Barcelona was going to defend. But we rarely used what we were preparing. One of the biggest problems is that we don’t follow the plan. We have difficulties, and after so many defeats, raising the team’s psychology is not easy. In one game we lose the fight for the balls, in another we attack the basket badly. It is difficult, but I have said many times that nobody will help us more than us. “
photo Getty Images /euroleague.net/Šarūnas Jasikevičius
Barcelona coach Šarūnas Jasikevičius, whose coached team won the 13th victory and is in second place in the Euroleague, radiated the opposite mood at the press conference.
The Lithuanian strategist highlighted the different faces of the students on the first and second sides of the match.
“We played very poorly on defense until the long break, but that changed in the second half of the game,” Shar said. – We started to stop the rivals. I think they didn’t score 30 points in the second half. This is Chimki, a talented attacking team, so the result is very good. I’m glad the guys woke up at the end of the meeting, in control of the second half of the game. I think the rebounds were the most important. When we got stuck, Kyle Kuric hit a few pitches or we made a second chance. There’s no question that when the game doesn’t work, rebounding is one way to win the game. “
On Thursday, Chimki from the Moscow region will travel to Istanbul where they will be received by basketball players from Anadolu Efes. At that time, on Friday, fans will see a basketball dessert in Moscow: a showdown between CSKA and Barcelona.
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