Xavi Pascual returned to Palau Blaugrana, his true basketball home, and he did so to give Barcelona fans a victory over Asvel Villaurban (88-78) with many shades in his game. The direction of Juani Marcos and Miles Cale’s defense were crucial for Barcelona, as they improved greatly in defense – leaving their opponents down 13 points in the final quarter – to secure their eighth Euroleague win.
Barcelona faced a very mixed side against Asvil Villaurban who entered Palau with just three wins in twelve matches. Throughout the first half, he felt like he had the ability to impose his advantage, but he proved unable. Players are still digesting the changes that Xavi Pascual has brought with him. A coach was going home and certainly didn’t like that his team gave up 25 points in the second quarter.
Toko Shengelia is a player with many virtues such as wisdom. The Georgian is the total player. A 2.06m tall man who defends, rebounds, scores and makes assists. In less than eight minutes, he kept his team afloat against a reckless Asville thanks to his six points and five rebounds. Helmsman Satoransky was forced to sit for eight minutes in the absence of Nico Laprovittola, who will be sidelined for about a month due to injury.
Joel Parra, Shengelia’s replacement, could not contribute as much as his colleague, but he gave more strength to the Barcelona team’s match. While Juani Marcos occupied the goalkeeping position with good minutes and clearer ideas than in the time of Joan Peñaroya. Yes, Barcelona lacked regularity and continuity. The team felt superior to its competitor, which led to a kind of relaxation that Asvel took advantage of to stay in the competition. Xavi Pascual’s men lacked accuracy, and made numerous errors in their well-placed shots and system to express their superiority. Nando De Colo (22 points, nine assists), the resistant Frenchman, has plenty of basketball in his hands and, at 38 years old, is still relevant. What’s more, it is the deciding factor in this team that is having difficulty climbing out of the bottom of the EuroLeague standings.
Barcelona wasn’t exactly good in defense during the first half (45-44) and was particularly clumsy when committing personal fouls on Pierrick Bobet’s forwards, who made 22 free throws in those 20 minutes with only two fouls. De Colo deserves a special mention, who has also excelled in this aspect, having yet to fail in the Euroleague after 46 matches. He is so successful that he uses all his experience to dig fouls out of his defenders’ pockets (12/12 in this match).
Asvel began to believe in his choices. A fourth win was within reach and it was achieved against a very chaotic Barcelona. Bodian Massa was in charge of the paint and it didn’t matter which position ran through his field. Externally, De Colo has shown his scoring ability everywhere. But the French goalkeeper, a historic goalkeeper, needed a rest and in the third quarter he found a good replacement in Thomas Hortel, who was booed at the show because of the problems he had with the club and the demand it placed on him for 1.5 million euros.
Kevin Punter (24 points) accepted the scoring challenge in Barcelona, which did not reach 50% accuracy in shots from two. Juani Marcos became his ally at the end of the third quarter, giving the Blaugrana the lead again (68-65). Inside, Pascual picked up the national product with Willy Hernangomez and Parra, strong on the rebound. The team was increasingly strong in defense and the Argentine goalkeeper was responsible for changing the dynamics of the game to allow Barcelona to finally believe in victory (75-67). Pascual’s team already felt invincible and Cal finished off two great defensive drives (80-69). Barcelona under Xavi Pascual just needed to manage this advantage to continue growing in Europe.