Barca rolls Zalgiris to stay perfect at home 19
FC Barcelona used a strong offensive display to get past Zalgiris Kaunas 96-73 at Palau Blaugrana on Friday en route to its fourth victory in a row to remain atop the Turkish Airlines Euroleague standings with a 10-2 record.
Pierre Oriola paced the winners with 13 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists for a performance index rating of 25. Rokas Jokubaitis followed him by posting 15 points and career-high 7 assists against his former club. Nigel Hayes-Davis added 12 points, Nikola Mirotic 11 and Kyle Kuric 10.
Tai Webster and Marek Blazevic, with 13 and 10 points respectively, led Zalgiris, who dropped to 2-10.
Zalgiris started strong as Zoran Dragic collected 4 points, Mantas Kalnietis followed with a triple and Tyler Cavanaugh completed a nice inside move to build a 5-11 lead after 4 minutes. The hosts found a timely answer from behind the arc and strung together a trio of three-pointers from different players on successive plays. Mirotic scored a contested hook shot to bring Barcelona back in charge and Sergi Martinez hit from the corner to make it 18-15. Josh Nebo contributed a layup to end Zalgiris’s three-minute scoring drought, but Oriola stepped up to help Barcelona close the first period with a 24-17 edge.
A three-pointer by Martinez granted the hosts their first double-digit lead, 29-19, early in the second. Even though Webster came to the rescue for Zalgiris with consecutive buckets, Barcelona kept running a smooth offense that turned into a 44-27 advantage behind an 8-0 spark coming from the duo of Oriola and Hayes-Davies. The latter hit from deep soon after to keep Zalgiris far behind, 50-33, but a triple from Lukas Lekavicius and free throws by Edgaras Ulanovas allowed the guests to stay alive at halftime, 52-38.
Despite Kalnietis and Blazevic excelling on offense right after the break, Zalgiris was not able to short-circuit Barcelona’s offense. As such, a double-digit difference remained midway through the third quarter, 67-52. Both squads traded free throws for a while until Rolands Smits and Jokubaitis showed up from deep to make it 75-56. The guests looked close to collapsing, as they were unable to score a single field goal for more than 4 minutes. A couple of free throws by Webster reduced the gap to 75-58 entering the last period.
Lekavicius ad Webster took advantage of the hosts’ mistakes to lessen the wounds and bring Zalgiris within 75-62, but Hayes-Davies drilled a contested three and drew an unsportsmanlike foul soon after that Jokubaitis capped with another bomb and a layup to set it at 85-62 with 7 minutes remaining. With the outcome in no doubt, Barca head coach Saras Jasikevicius rewarded youngsters Michael Caicedo, Rafa Villar and James Nnaji with some playing time as the home team waited for the final whistle.
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