FC Barcelona used a fantastic 3rd quarter to smash Joventut Badalona
Like the day before when they won against Murcia after being led by a double-digit margin, FC Barcelona came back almost in the same style in the friendly game against Joventut Badalona.
What should be actually an easy game for the Euroleague powerhouse transformed into a deficit of 11 points in the first minutes of the 3rd quarter, when Joventut Badalona seemed to dominate the encounter. It was exactly the point when the Azulgrana squad woke up and finished this stanza with a terrifying 28-10.
I always said that the best team has no obligation to start well the game but to finish it well. My theory about basketball and betting is that only after the break the real battle starts and it is the crucial moment when the strong team will give everything to toss the opponents.
Till the break, the good basketball coaches, like Sarunas Jasikevicius, are trying to test the other team, to rotate very deep the bench, to find different formulas for the best chemistry on the court. Then, in the 3rd quarter, their team is pushing the engine to make a difference. In this kind of games, the strongest team scores in the 3rd quarter almost the same amount of points that they scored before in the entire first half. The theory was perfectly proved yesterday: FC Barcelona had 32 points in the first half and then exploded for 28 points only in the 3rd quarter. That’s the strategy, to use all your energy in the second part of the game, creating and then maintaining an important margin.
From the betting perspectives, great teams could many times lose the first or the second quarter, but if they are led at halftime by the underdog with enough points, they will bounce back in the 3rd quarter, being the first to reach 15 and 20 points in this period.
Image: Euroleague
