Barcelona falls to Milano and is lost in Europe

Euroleague day 15

Barça

Milan

He barely uttered the speaker the name of Nikola Mirotic and the Palau, standing and even on its knees, decomposed, a pavilion always loyal to its own, with a fine nose and a dedicated heart, respectful of its idols and those who have marked the pace of the club. And few figures have connected as much as the Montenegrin, a player who brought the culé fans to his feet with baskets and professionalism, also for his elegance on the hardwood and even for his heartfelt words towards the club, even though his departure two years ago It was traumatic because he wanted to be paid more than Barça could and they ended up in trouble, to the point that his contract is in court waiting to know what the settlement is because they canceled his file to face the Fairplay financial that LaLiga demanded. He left through the back door, although his last two Barça games became applause, cheers and celebrations because they helped them win the ACB against Madrid. Since then, the team has not known any laurel and it does not seem that this year it is on the right track, lost last night against Milano after a tremendous trigger in the third quarter that prevents it from picking up the thread in an increasingly crazy Euroleague, where Fenerbahçe and Panathinaikos can lose by 30 points at the hands of Monaco and Efes.

Mirotic did not tremble in his old home, capable of making seven of Olimpia Milano’s first nine points, a layup, two free throws and a triple, a sample of his inexhaustible repertoire. But he found a sharp version of Barça, that when it erupts there is no one to stop it, the one in which it runs like crazy, dizzying transitions and improbable shots that find the net. There was Parker’s mountebank, the waistbreaker Punter, the dapper Vesely and the hard-working Satoransky, triple after triple, basket by basket. A lot of rhythm and a lot of basketball for a Milano who was sweating bullets, no matter how much he relieved himself from the free throw line, and who couldn’t handle the Barça change wheel either, always with Juan Núñez as a compass and finally with a Hernangómez who put the law under the post (24-16).

Mirotic protested from the periphery and Brizuela responded in kind. But, suddenly, the Barça wrist went cold in a bad way as the losses occurred, a reel for a Milano who also became strong on the rebound and who returned the difficulties to the scoreboard. “Milano, Milano, Milano!” shouted the fifty Italian fans present at the Palau, encouraged by the roller coaster that is this Barça, lethal at times and little sister of charity in others. A swing that left the duel even (43-40) when the middle and the end remained.

It then happened that the distribution of candy and slaps was continuous, with Shields on one side and the Czech connection -Satoransky and Vesely- on the other, also with a Punter who intended to recover his love affair with the orange ball. And when it seemed that there was no one to put any ground in the way, the angry protests of Ettore Messina gave wings to his team, inspired like never before by Leday from the triple, Shields in tune as always and, of course, Hernangómez intemperate under the hoop to express that no It is found that without trust nothing is the same. It was a big Barça blackout, a time of calamities, a time of failures, a time of a history already lived in this Barça, which works in fits and starts, incapable of prolonging its basketball over time. 60-76 in the absence of the epilogue.

The cascarrón was anthological and the Palau screamed their throats to try to lift Barça. But not even with those, because no matter how much Vesely tried, there was no help. The Peñarroya team, devastated again, with its head bowed due to another defeat in which it did not know how to say its own, reluctantly accepted defeat. Not so the public who, once the duel was over, turned towards the box to protest the course, to make a whistle in disagreement. The victory, of course, was for Milano, Mirotic’s team.