The Hand of Elijah is always a great measuring stick. And Jasikevicius's Barça, after a somewhat hesitant start to the season, got an outstanding performance this Thursday in the Macabeo pavilion, where no one had yet won this season. The Catalans continue to climb the Euroleague standings thanks to a meritorious victory against Maccabi in Tel Aviv, confirming that their degree of maturity as a team continues to grow.
With six new faces this season, Barça is showing clear signs of assimilating better and better the systems and way of working of its coach, and keeping intact its aspirations for glory at the end of the season.
Barça's success from the triple began by writing the script for the game. Laprovittola, top scorer of the night with 19 points despite being unprecedented in the last quarter, was the best in this aspect, signing a spectacular 6 of 12. An inspiration that allowed Barça to make the first differences (18-23, m 16). But nothing is easy in Tel Aviv, and neither is winning a basketball game. Maccabi persevered to try to impose their devilish pace of play and in the second act they succeeded. He started to run and Lorenzo Brown's irruption turned the scoreboard, disarming the azulgrana. So much so that Kalinic made a terrible mistake on the last play of the first half, which involved a three-pointer at Maccabi's buzzer to lead the locker room (43-40).
With the Barcelona pivots heavily loaded, Kattash's men took advantage of the inertia to stretch to 50-44. The answer came with the signing of Laprovittola, with two three-pointers that started a 0-10 run that began the scoring. In the last ten minutes the figure of Higgins emerged, ever closer to the best version of him, who not only scored 15 points but also signed several worthwhile defensive actions that secured Barça's victory. The first in Tel Aviv since 2016.
79- Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv (20 23 18 18): Lorenzo Brown (18), Baldwin (16), Poythress (10), Colson (6), Nebo (9) -starting team-, Adams (8), Martin 2), Pnini (-), DiBartholomew (8), Hilliard (-), Cohen (-) and Hollins (2).
86- Barça (23 17 22 24): Satoransky (9), Laprovittola (19), Kalinic (5), Sanli (4), Tobey (14) -initial team-, Da Silva (-), Paulí (-), Vesely (6), Abrines (13), Higgins (15), Jokubaitis (1) and Nnaji (-).
Referees: Borys Ryzhyk (UCR), Fernando Rocha (POR) and Anne Panther (ALE). They eliminated the local Baldwin (min.36) and the visitors Sanli (min.36), Tobey (min.39) and Vesely (min.39) by five fouls.
Incidents: match of the seventh day of the Euroleague played at the Menora Mivtachim Arena in Tel Aviv (Israel) before some 11,000 spectators.
