“This is the kind of game when you have to congratulate the other team and take the lessons home in order to improve and be better the next time,” Coach Ettore Messina said after FC Barcelona defeated Olimpia 72-56. “It’s obvious that we struggled to score, we had 17 turnovers and shot 13 percent from three-point range, those are sad numbers, and on top of that we missed also the good shots that we created,” he added. Barcelona established early its physicality, their defense was suffocating, and Olimpia couldn’t create any advantages and didn’t shoot well at all. Michael Roll and Sergio Rodriguez were held scoreless, Kevin Punter didn’t make a single three and finished in single-digit scoring. It’s an example. “Did we miss Malcolm Delaney? Of course – Messina answered -, we miss the real Delaney, the one we had when he was healthy at the beginning of the season. But with the same players we had tonight. last week we played a beautiful game and won in Moscow.”

Barcelona set the tone early, in a low-scoring game, dominated by the defense, because for much time Olimpia’s defense was good too. After falling behind by seven in the first period, Olimpia responded, tied the game with a Jeremy Evans’ three, fed off Sergio Rodriguez’ passing and earned a four-point lead in the second quarter. When the percentages went down again, Barcelona using a great second quarter by Nikola Mirotic came back and took a nine-point lead in the locker room. Olimpia tried to stay close in the third, but never found any shooting consistency and Barcelona was able to finish the game off in the middle of the fourth.