Explaining FC Barcelona’s home loss against Baskonia
Almost a month ago FC Barcelona destroyed Baskonia in the Euroleague by 26 points. Then recently Real Madrid also smashed the Basques with 28 points margin. So how was possible the Barca yesterday big loss against the same Baskonia?
First of all, Barca had a difficult game away this week at the reigning champions of the Euroleague, Anadolu Efes. Even if nobody gave a chance to the Catalans (without Calathes and Higgins), they prevailed in the overtime in Istanbul. Tough game, so important that it seems that Barca consumed there on Turkish ground all the bullets.
The second thing is that FC Barcelona has the next Euroleague round against the arch-rivals from Real Madrid. Without the pair of injured guards, it will be very difficult for Barca and they tried to save some energy against a “weak” Baskonia.
And here you have the third detail of the loss: Baskonia is not such a weak team that people believed it to be. The arrival of coach Neven Spahija and the signing of Lamar Peters have also their limited good impact on the team, but even without them, Baskonia was always an ambitious team that can make the surprise when it’s possible. They are not comparable with the Golden Age of the club, but still, they have valuable players and the derby against FC Barcelona motivated them a lot.
This is modern European basketball, where any team can find a good to beat the champions.
Image credit: Euroleague
Gratian Cormos is a Romanian life coach, journalist, book writer and mentor currently living in Barcelona, Spain. You can buy his book “How to bet on basketball” ordering by e-mail at: gratian_cormos@yahoo.com
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