Zaragoza gives the surprise and knocks down Barça

The victory supposes for the group ‘rojillo’ a moral impulse due to the entity of the rival, who arrived in the Aragonese capital as the co-leader of the competition and after two victories in the Euroleague, but above all it is one of those victories that is not counted at the beginning of the season and that can be worth its weight in gold for tenure.

Almost everything went well for Porfirio Fisac’s team, especially in the first half, against an opponent who was clueless in many phases of the match, possibly because he had his head in the Euroleague games next week against Olympiacos and Fenerbahce, and who was seen forced to try to overcome a maximum handicap up to 25 points for those who lost in the 22nd minute.

The ‘rojillos’ coach had warned before the match that if the Catalan team gave them an opportunity they should take advantage of it. No sooner said than done.

Barça, without Mirotic, was not able to impose its authority and the Maño team believed that they could win from the beginning, the almighty Barça team that reacted too late and Casademont Zaragoza ended up achieving a triumph of great merit and invaluable value for permanence.

The first set was marked by the temporary suspension of the game due to a problem in the video scoreboard console when five minutes had been played with a result of 6-4 and that kept the players standing for 40 minutes.

This break in the game suited the owners of the field better with Howard Sant-Roos and the very young Aday Mara as protagonists. With 9 points for the first and 7 for the second, they capitalized on the ‘rojillo’ attack to finish the first quarter with 7 rental points (19-12) against a very unfortunate Barça in shooting.

The tone did not change in the second quarter with a team unleashed and accurate in attack and that created tremendous problems for the Catalans with a great defense. Such was so the distance in the electronic was progressively enlarged until reaching the maximum coinciding with the break, 22 points (46-24), thanks to a choral game from Zaragoza with a huge 63% accuracy in field goals in this second quarter against 18% (3 of 17) of the team by Sarunas Jasikevicius.

The confusion in the first part of those from Barcelona reached such a point that the highest rated player, Nico Laprovittola, he only valued 6 credits, having up to five players with a negative evaluation. Also, in the +- all the players were negative.

When they returned from the changing rooms, a more aggressive Barça in attack and defense was expected and this was confirmed. With Laprovittola as offensive banner managed to reduce the home advantage to 16 points (57-41) in barely three minutes, but Casademont held on until the end of this quarter, when they were 15 up, despite the great success in their rival’s three-pointers (6 of 9).

With the Barcelona team trying to score fast and the man from Zaragoza stretching his possessions, the difference began to decrease to 9 points (75-66) with 3.56 to go before the conclusion, putting fear into the body of Porfirio Fisac’s team who saw how with 20 seconds to go the advantage was four points (80-76). Barça resorted to fouls to try to avoid defeat but the owners of the ground were calm and ended up taking the victory