Thanks to its Round 30 victory, the Blaugrana are now in fifth place
Barcelona 'trending in the right direction', climbing the standings
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FC Barcelona had to fight hard on Friday night but it controlled everything on the floor in the last three quarters to beat Zalgiris Kaunas 82-70.
Neither team had good shooting percentages and Barcelona, a team that came into the game as the best scoring team in the league with 87.6 points per game, did not score more than 23 points in any quarter.
“It’s two teams fighting in March, it’s not going to be easy,” Barcelona forward Justin Anderson said during a courtside interview with EuroLeague TV after the game.
But once Barcelona took the lead thanks to a 9-0 run bridging the first and second quarters, it never relinquished it.
“It’s four weeks to go and every game needs to be played 100% physical and 100% mental,” commented coach Joan Penarroya after the big win. “I think we deserved the win tonight.”
And while Penarroya, like most of his colleagues, does not want to comment on his team’s playoff chance, it is a fact that with four games to go in the regular season, this win catapulted Barcelona into fifth place in the standings.
Admittedly, it’s a four-team tie at 17-13 record, which means Barcelona has the same number of wins as its next opponent, eighth-placed FC Bayern Munich. But it is also just a win away from fourth place.
“What’s the most important is our next game here at home. Nothing else matters,” Anderson added. “One game at the time. And this team is trending in the right direction.”
With three wins in a row and a 3-1 record after the February break, Barcelona certainly seems to be where it wants to be. Kevin Punter, Jabari Parker, Chimezie Metu and Tomas Satoransky are carrying the biggest load, expectedly, but Dario Brizuela and Anderson have become irreplaceable pieces.
Brizuela led Barca with 20 points, scoring eight in the final quarter, as the hosts never allowed Zalgiris to get closer than six points.
“I am just happy to help my team in the situation we are missing players,” Brizuela commented modestly after the win.
Meanwhile, Anderson played more than 30 minutes for just the second time this season, his first in the EuroLeague, and was his team’s second-best scorer on the night with 16 points.
Despite the season-ending injuries to Nico Laprovittola and Juan Nunez, and the extended absence of Jan Vesely, it feels as though Barcelona is exactly where it wanted to be all along. And it keeps playing winning basketball in the month of March.