A week after losing by the minimum in Istanbul against Fenerbahçe, Barcelona suffered its second consecutive defeat in the Euroleague against Monaco on Tuesday (74-90). In the other match with Spanish participation of the 19th day, which marks the halfway point of the regular phase, Valencia beat Partizan Belgrade (86-73) led by Joan Peñarroya, former Barça coach.
Once the first quarter ended, however, Barça’s team enjoyed great success, Monaco, a refined offensive machine embodied by a character above all others, Mike James, all-time leading scorer in the Euroleague and nightmare of the disorganized culé defense.
The affair was unblocked, at least in appearance, by Darío Brizuela, accustomed to shaking up his team during the last European afternoons, but Barça quickly hit the wall raised by Vassilis Spanoulis, legend of continental basketball who is now writing his path on two benches, that of Monaco and that of the Greek team, bronze at the last Eurobasket.
Pascual acknowledged heading into the game that in his first step as Barca coach, he was close to recruiting the Greek point guard, then an Olympiacos star, to form an outside pair with Juan Carlos Navarro, now Barca’s director of basketball. Neither would have been a bad thing for the Gavá coach to remedy this Tuesday a difference that proved insurmountable: a culé defeat, the seventh of the season in the Euroleague, five days before the league classic.
Things went better for the fashionable team in Europe, Valencia Basket, which won a very close duel at the Roig Arena against Partizán and took advantage of Hapoel Tel Aviv’s loss against Zalgiris to take the lead in the highest continental competition with 13 victories in the 19 matches of the first round.
The performance of North American Darius Thompson, the team’s highest rated, contributed greatly to this. taronja this Tuesday with 17 points, six assists and three rebounds for a total of 22 points in the same minutes of play.
“I’m happy, but the numbers and the sequences don’t mean anything to me,” warned Pedro Martínez, Valencia coach after the fall. “If we lose the next three matches, we will fall to the middle of the table. That’s what makes this competition incredible,” he added.
His team, in any case, said goodbye to the year in the best possible way, at the top of the Euroleague standings and third in the ACB, where they did not experience defeat at home. The Roig Arena was built as a fortress for the grapefruitswho this season have 15 victories and only one defeat as host, that suffered in October behind closed doors against the Israeli Hapoel Tel Aviv.
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