The barca and the Palau fans have known for a long time that Nicolás Laprovittola is a special player. One of those capable of igniting and making everything flow, making life easier. So that it is not forgotten, the Argentine point guard recreates, from time to time, one of those magical episodes in which he takes over the field and breaks the games as he did this Sunday against the Bilbao Basket (88-78), who ended up falling on the Barça field, despite strong opposition from the Basque team.
It was a delicious performance by the player from Morón (20 points, 5 assists, PIR of 31), who scored, made the team play and intelligently fed the youngster james naji in the area, so that the 18-year-old Nigerian center delivered one of his brightest cards as professionals (16 points, 4 rebounds).
Laprovittola emerged with a greased trigger and in just 13 minutes he scored 17 points with 5 of 6 on three-pointers and opened a world between the two teams (30-13), which allowed the Catalans to comfortably face a game that was not easy against the Bilbao Basketwho is having a good season.
maximum intensity
The team trained by Jaume Ponsarnau He still had distant options to enter the Cup and he did not lose face to the match at any time, improving a lot in defense, making the rubber, with a block loaded with ex-azulgranas: Hakanson, Rabaseda, Sulejmanovic and Ubal (on loan from the azulgranas), who raise their level.
The triples of Alan Smith and Reyes they kept the people from Bilbao in the fight, but every time the score tightened and this happened on several occasions until the end (80-76, m. 38), Barça managed to stretch it, either with the intensity of jokubaitis or a good run of open, more motivated than ever after being a father the night before to his second daughter, Gala.
jasikevicius he made the very young play Give me Sarr, aged 16 years, 7 months and 18 days, a forward measuring 1.96, who became the second youngest player to debut with Barça in the ACB, after Eric Villa, current player of Basketball Girona. Sarr, with an Italian passport, had been standing out in the junior team that he leads Roger Grimau, He was already included in the ideal quintet of the last L’Hospitalet Tournament, and in the last seconds he left two good details attacking the basket, although he failed to score.
Data sheet
FC Barcelona: Satoransky (6), Laprovittola (20), Kalinic (-), Mirotic (9), Nnaji (16) -initial team-, Da Silva (-), Paulí (-), Sanli (6), Abrines (9), Kuric (8), Jokubaitis (14) and Sarr (-).
South Bilbao Basket: Hakanson (8), Smith (16), Rabaseda (4), Kyser (4), Sulejmanovic (9) -initial team-, Withey (5), Radisevic (8), Andersson (4), Reyes (11), Alonso (9), Ubal (-) and Rosa (-).