2020-21Regular SeasonRound 19
Khimki Moscow Region 75
FC Barcelona 87
January 12, 2021 CET: 18:00
Local time: 20:00 ARENA MYTISHCHI

Barcelona dominates glass and Khimki

FC Barcelona won its seventh straight game against Khimki Moscow Region 75-87 on Tuesday night at Arena Mytishchi in the Russian capital. The visitors led by as many as 20 before Khimki closed the gap late. Barcelona dominated the glass 22-44, including 16 offensive rebounds in improving its record to 13-6. Cory Higgins and Kyle Kuric scored 18 points apiece to lead Barcelona, Rolands Smits added 12 points, Alex Abrines had 11, Pierre Oriola tallied 9 points and 10 rebounds and Nick Calathes scored 8 points and set a club record with 15 assists. Alexey Shved paced Khimki with 23 points and 6 assists, Devin Booker scored 13, Jordan Mickey 11 and Errick McCollum 10 as Khimki lost its 11th straight game to fall to 2-17.

Khimki jumped in front with threes by Egor Vialtsev, Shved and Booker on as many possessions. Smits and Abrines provided the Barcelona resistance before Higgins capped a 0-8 run with a layup for Barcelona's first lead, 9-10. Khimki regained in control through triples by Booker and Shved to make it 18-14. Kuric came off the bench and knocked down a three for Barcelona that tied it at 20-20 as Calathes racked up his 6th assist of the opening quarter. Kuric scored twice more to keep things even at 26-26 after 10 minutes. The Barca shooting guard started the second quarter with 2 more threes that pushed the visitors in front, 28-32. Dairis Bertans soon tied it at 34-34 with 3 free throws, but Higgins went coach to coast for a layup before feeding Calathes for a layup that put Barcelona back in control, 38-43, midway through the quarter. McCollum's step-through jumper kept Khimki close. Calathes notched his 10th assist on a Smits free throw and Smits's alley-oop slam lifted the visitors to a 48-54 halftime cushion.

Barcelona added to the lead early in the second half and Higgins scored twice as the margin soared to 52-64. Calathes took a seat with 3 fouls, but Khimki could get no closer than 9 the rest of the quarter. A three by Higgins extended the difference to 14 before McCollum split free throws to end the third quarter at 60-73. The Barcelona defense held Khimki to just 2 points in the first 4 minutes of the fourth quarter as the visitors pulled away for good. The difference reached 20 after late threes by Abrines. A late flurry by Khimki made the final score more respectable, but the outcome was longer in doubt.

Pivotal player

Nick Calathes was at his best setting up teammates all over the place to set a club record with 15 assists. Calathes delivered 6 helpers in the first quarter and had 10 by halftime. He broke his own record at the club after dishing 14 against AX Armani Exchange Milan last month. It marked the 18th time in EuroLeague history that a player has recorded at least 15 assists; Calathes has his name on six ofthose performancese.

Stellar stat

Barcelona's thorough domination on the rebounds, 22-44, made a bigger impact than anything else. However, the visitors' defense also made a big difference by holding Khimki to 6-of-18 two-point shooting (33.3%) and 3-of-11 (27.3%) on threes in the second half when it was outscored 27-33.

Three-point history

With his 5 three-pointers, Alexey Shved moved past Arturas Milaknis of Zalgiris Kaunas for ninth place in competition history with 395 career triples, though Milaknis will have a chance to catch him on Wednesday night when his team faces CSKA Moscow. Kyle Kuric's 4-for-4 shooting from behind the arc took his success rate for the season to 61.4%, which is on pace for the all-time single-season record. That record currently belongs to Pawel Wiekiera, who made 60% of his triples for Idea Slask in 2002-03. Kuric also moved past teammate Cory Higgins (45.4%) for second place among active players at 45.5%. The active leader is Zalgiris's Marius Grigonis at 46.2%.

What's next?

Khimki heads on the road for its next game on Thursday, January 14, at Anadolu Efes Istanbul. Barcelona will remain in Moscow to take on league-leading CSKA the following evening.

Kyle Kuric - FC Barcelona - EB20
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
Euroleague.net
Referees: RYZHYK, BORYS; HORDOV, TOMISLAV ; VYKLICKY, ROBERT
Attendance: 0
By Quarter1234
Khimki Moscow Region26221215
FC Barcelona26281914
End of Quarter1234
Khimki Moscow Region26486075
FC Barcelona26547387
Khimki Moscow Region
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
1 SHVED, ALEXEY 32:07 23 2/9 5/9 4/4   3 3 6 1 5     1 4 20
3 MCCOLLUM, ERRICK 19:43 10 1/4 2/2 2/4   1 1 1 1 1     2 2 7
7 KARASEV, SERGEY 24:56 5 1/1 1/2           2 1     2 2 5
8 ZAITCEV, VIACHESLAV 24:44 2 1/2 0/1     2 2 2 2 1   1 3 1 2
9 VIALTSEV, EGOR 5:41 3   1/1                       3
12 MONIA, SERGEY 3:04     0/1                       -1
13 SHARAPOV, VLADISLAV DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
17 ODINOKOV, VLADISLAV DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
18 VORONOV, EVGENY 14:02 2 1/1       3 3 1         3 3 6
31 BOOKER, DEVIN 32:47 13 2/8 2/4 3/4 3 2 5 4         2 4 15
45 BERTANS, DAIRIS 20:34 6   1/3 3/3   1 1   1 1     3 3 5
55 MICKEY, JORDAN 22:22 11 4/7 0/1 3/4 1 3 4 1 2 2 1   2 2 12
Team           2 1 3     1         2
Totals 200:00 75 12/32 12/24 15/19 6 16 22 15 9 12 1 1 18 21 76
        37.5% 50% 78.9%
Head coach: KURTINAITIS, RIMAS
Min: Minutes played; Pts: Points; 2FG M-A: 2-point Field Goals (Made-Attempted); 3FG M-A: 3-point Field Goals (Made-Attempted); FT M-A: Free Throws (Made-Attempted); Rebounds: O (Offensive), D (Defensive), T (Total); As: Assists; St: Steals; To: Turnovers; Bl: Blocks (Fv: In Favor / Ag: Against); Fouls: Cm (Commited), Rv (Received); PIR: Performance Index Rating
FC Barcelona
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
2 WESTERMANN, LEO 16:30   0/1 0/2     1 1 2 1 2     2   -3
8 HANGA, ADAM 18:01 4 2/4 0/3   1 2 3 2           2 6
9 BOLMARO, LEANDRO 3:33           1 1     2         -1
10 SMITS, ROLANDS 23:06 12 5/9 0/1 2/4 2 6 8 1   1   1 1 3 14
14 PUSTOVYI, ARTEM 13:43 5 1/2   3/4 4 1 5 2   4     3 2 5
17 BADJI, IBOU 2:07   0/1                         -1
18 ORIOLA, PIERRE 20:11 9 4/9   1/2 5 5 10 1   2     2 2 12
21 ABRINES, ALEX 13:03 11 1/2 3/5     1 1           4   5
22 HIGGINS, CORY 22:58 18 7/10 1/3 1/1 1 3 4 5 4       1 3 28
23 MARTINEZ, SERGI 20:49 2 1/1 0/1   2   2     2     3 2  
24 KURIC, KYLE 20:03 18 2/3 4/4 2/2   2 2 1   1     2 2 19
99 CALATHES, NICK 25:56 8 4/6       3 3 15 2 1 1   3 2 25
Team           1 3 4               4
Totals 200:00 87 27/48 8/19 9/13 16 28 44 29 7 15 1 1 21 18 113
        56.3% 42.1% 69.2%
Head coach: JASIKEVICIUS, SARUNAS

Head Coaches

KURTINAITIS, RIMAS
Khimki Moscow Region
"Congratulations to FC Barcelona and Coach Sarunas Jasikevicius on a good game and win. From our side, many aspects of the game were not bad, especially in terms of defense. However, today we had serious problems with rebounds, as we took 22 rebounds less, having allowed the opponent to make 22 additional offenses. This was the key to their win. We have good practices, but we can't keep our concentration for 40 minutes. We were preparing for this game and knew how FC Barcelona would defend, but we applied our best preparations very sporadically. One of the biggest problems is that we don't stick to the game plan. There are difficulties and after so many lost games, it is not so easy to raise the team psychologically. In this regard, we need to work on some things: if we have problems with shooting one game, then today we had a problem with rebounds, and this problem was obvious. It is difficult, but I have already said more than once: no one will help us, only ourselves."
JASIKEVICIUS, SARUNAS
FC Barcelona
"We were playing so bad defensively and in the second half, we really changed the game from defense. We started getting some stops. I think they didn’t score 30 points in the second half, which against a Khimki team that has so much offensive talent is such a good performance. I am happy that the guys woke up and in the end, we controlled the game in the second half. I think [rebounding] was one of the biggest keys. When we were struggling, we were hitting some shot with Kyle [Kuric] or we were getting second chances which allowed us to have some extra possessions, so of course, in the moments when you are struggling, this is one of the ways to get back in the game."

Players

BERTANS, DAIRIS
Khimki Moscow Region
"If we knew the answer to why this is happening, especially in the second half, we would have taken it into account and what happened would not have happened. We lost the rebounding, but we have a lot of [switches], our bigs remain upside, so we have to fight with small guys against the opponent's bigs. In this situation, to take the rebound becomes difficult. There are a lot of games ahead, but it is clear that we can no longer think about the EuroLeague Playoffs. All the same, we will not give up and will fight to the end to improve our game."
CALATHES, NICK
FC Barcelona
"It was a big win for us on the road against a team like Khimki, it's always difficult to play here. We are missing some guys, so it was good to get this win. Without some key players, other guys stepped up and played well. Obviously, defense wasn't a part of both teams in the first half and I thought we played better defense in the second. We got some rebounds, changed the defense and we got some stops."
HIGGINS, CORY
FC Barcelona
"It was a pretty good win for us. We were pretty bad in the first half. We had a terrible defensive mindset, but we changed that at halftime. We really need that right now because we're missing a lot of guys. Ultimately it was a good win for us. It was all defense. They have a very talented team, a lot of good players. As long as we have that defensive mindset, we usually play pretty well."
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