90-93: The ‘Basque Mamba’ annihilates Hapoel in Sofia

He Barça 26/27 advances slowly but surely and in Sofia, the exile in which the Hapoel from Tel Aviv, went one step further. He won again with suspense in the final stretch, yes, but after dominating for many minutes and resisting the final Israeli reaction.

Dario Brizuelaplaying as a point guard but also as a scorer, finished with 22 points to lead a prestigious victory for the Blaugrana (90-93), the fourth in a row in Euroleague and sixth in total. He also scored the winning basket with 5 seconds left. They supported him Robinson (20), Martin (11) and Nebo (12) among others.

Some infallible attacks from Hapoel against a Barça defense that soon accumulated four fouls, they soon reflected the problems at the back that Barça had at the start, in which they conceded 16-8 that forced a timeout Sekulic. Beyond the first dunks of NeboBarça began to find Kevin Pointer and justin Robinson to try to recover with scoring. The triples did not go in (9 of 8) but a couple of fouls on three-point shooting allowed them to capitalize on those options until 21-19 at the end of the first quarter.

Equality was the dynamic of the second quarter, with more contributions from other Barça players in attack, such as Evbuomwan either Minaya to give the first slight advantages to the Blaugrana, better in the fight for the offensive rebound as well. Hapoel responded with scoring streaks from Elijah Bryant and Vasilje Micic but he Barça stayed solid as well with a final triple from Justin Robinson which made the score 46-46 at halftime.

The tension at the beginning of the third quarter was resolved by Hapoel with penetrations to the rim in which he exploited rival fouls and trips to the free throw. Bryant and Micic They lived off that to achieve a 13-3 run against a Barça less clairvoyant. That changed completely with the entry of Brizuela who, acting as a base, did not give up scoring and generating advantages to promote a change of panorama. He scored 10 points almost in a row and assisted on some more baskets until a 2-20 run that put Barça in control of the situation until the end of the third quarter (64-73).

In the last quarter Brizuela and Martin held the Barça with advantages of almost ten points but the Hapoel He did not lose faith and tried to react by again looking for fouls or three-pointers. With baskets of Bryant and Micic He was within one (90-91) with 26 seconds left, giving Brizuela the opportunity to put the cherry on top with a bomb in the race that set the record.