El Barcelona will take a long time to forget the name of Sylvain Francisco. The escort of Zalgiri with a past at BAXI Manresa signed an anthological match ending to execute the azulgranasunable to stop the emergence of the small French player, who He scored 15 of his 19 points in the last five minutes to put the game away (74-67).
FC BARCELONA
Francisco (19+4+3) was the hero of a Zalgiris which also featured a great version of Brazdeikis (17+5). Between them, they were enough to put people in trouble. a Barcelona that had a start to the game as disappointing as it lacked intensityand which was rescued by the usual push of Laprovittola (12+8 assists) on an erratic night from the perimeter (5/20 triples).
Erratic start for Barcelona
Barça presented a very discreet face during the first half. Erratic in shooting (6/18 t2 and 4/12 triples) and too lax in defensethey were always in tow of a Zalgiris who always found Brazdeikis, Butkevicius and Wallace to pierce the Barça defense effort with simple blocks that Peñarroya’s could not cover.
In the first minutes, only Willy Hernangómez and Jabari Parker maintained the level to prevent the escape of the Lithuanians, who scored with triples from Giedraitis and Francisco (21-14). Then, given Punter’s problems seeing the hoop, it was Laprovittola who pulled the culé car. But the efforts of Mitchell and Butkevicius gave Zalgiris the maximum advantage (41-28).
At half-time Peñarroya had to read the card to his team, who came out much more intense in defense, leaving few loopholes for the Lithuanians. With that effort and the offensive success of Abrines, Lapro, Satoransky and Parker, the Blaugranas made a 2-11 that put them fully into the game (45-42, min 26), eventually drawing with a reactivated Vesely (48-48 , min 28).
That trend changed at the beginning of the last quarter with the storming start of Zalgiris, who recovered their breath with a 7-0 lead by a great Brazdeikis (57-48, min 33). Parker and Vesely hit back with a 0-6 (57-54).
Then the recital of Sylvain Francisco began, who first scored 10 points in a row to shoot his team again (67-60). And then he scored another five, including a triple, to seal it (74-67).
