Joventut Badalona with an amazing comeback over FC Barcelona
It looked like an easy win for Barca, who led by double-digits in the 3rd quarter. As coach Jasikevicius said in the press conference at that moment of the game, you have to finish it, not letting the opponents come back.
Joventut Badalona fought till the end with hope, even if they couldn’t count on William Howard. They dominated the second half forcing many turnovers on the Blaugrana side. The veterans Pau Ribas and Ante Tomic, ex-Barcelona players led the team with 16 points both. Joel Parra had also a good game with 14, while Kyle Guy and Andres Feliz finished with 10 points scored.
You cannot say that Barca had a bad game, they were controlling the first part and maybe they relaxed too early in the 3rd quarter when Badalona started their comeback. Winning in Pabellon Olimpic is not easy even if you are a Euroleague powerhouse like Barca. If you take a look at the last 7 official games between the Catalan teams, Joventut won 3 while FC Barcelona 4, so it is very balanced, even if the difference in the budgets between these two clubs is huge.
I think that the motivation and the collective effort were much better on the host side, pushed also from the back by an amazing crowd of fans. Even if the final score didn’t reflect it so much (82-79), Joventut Badalona was by far superior in the index rating category with 96-75, which is maybe the best indicator of their amazing performance.
The article was written by Gratian Cormos, a Romanian journalist, book writer, life coach and mentor currently living in Barcelona, Spain.
If you are interested in collaborating with his website brainbasketball.net, in order to publish articles, interviews or other features related to basketball, feel free to contact Gratian Cormos by Whatsapp or Telegram at this Spanish number: +34 612414486
Photo credit: Joventut Badalona
