2020-21Regular SeasonRound 1
FC Barcelona 76
CSKA Moscow 66
October 01, 2020 CET: 21:00
Local time: 21:00 PALAU BLAUGRANA

Abrines, Mirotic led Barcelona past CSKA

In a battle of Turkish Airlines EuroLeague powerhouses, FC Barcelona had a strong start to the season by downing CSKA Moscow 76-66 at Palau Blaugrana on Thursday. Brandon Davies led the winners with 18 points, Nikola Mirotic added 17 and Alex Abrines scored 13 for Barcelona. Toko Shengelia paced CSKA with 15 points, Mike James added 13 and Daniel Hackett 11. Mirotic and Davies fueled a 10-0 run, which helped Barcelona to a 24-14 lead after 10 minutes. Barcelona held a 41-33 margin at halftime, but CSKA managed to get within 57-55 early in the fourth quarter. Abrines and Davies led a 14-2 run that sealed the outcome down the stretch.


Ivan Ukhov got CSKA going with a three-pointer before Cory Higgins and Mirotic gave Barcelona its first lead, 4-3. Shengelia took over with an alley-oop layup and got help from James and Johannes Voigtmann to restore a 7-9 CSKA lead. Mirotic and Abrines each struck from downtown, igniting a 10-0 run that Davies capped with a huge slam. Darrun Hilliard followed a triple with a close jumper, but Davies and Adam Hanga fueled another 7-0 run that Nick Calathes capped with a layup to make it a double-digit game, 24-14, after 10 minutes. Joel Bolomboy and Hanga traded baskets early in the second quarter and then Davies added a dunk-and-foul for a 29-17 Barcelona lead. Will Clyburn found his first basket, but so did Thomas Heurtel and Rolands Smits, which caused CSKA to stop the game at 33-19. Hackett buried back-to-back triples and Shengelia added a put-back dunk that gave the visitors hope at 36-27. Mirotic stepped up with consecutive layups, but Shengelia and Clyburn drew CSKA within 41-33 at halftime.

Mirotic scored again immediately after the break and fed Abrines for a bomb from downtown for a 46-35 Barcelona lead. Calathes joined the three-point shootout, but Hackett and Clyburn kept pushing CSKA and Bolomboy dunked, which prompted the hosts to stop the game at 51-44. Barcelona found answers on offense through Mirotic and Davies to keep a 55-48 margin after 30 minutes. Shengelia buried a three-pointer early in the fourth quarter and James dunked to bring CSKA even closer, 57-55. Abrines gave Barcelona fresh air with a triple and a dunk-and-foul in an 8-0 run that made it 65-55. The hosts excelled on defense when it mattered most and Calathes nailed a step-back jumper to seal the outcome, 71-57, with 3 minutes left. CSKA never recovered.

Pivotal performer

Nikola Mirotic picked it up where he left off last season, making the difference in this game with a great all-around performance. He finished the game with 17 points, 7 rebounds, an assist, 4 steals and 6 fouls drawn for a performance index rating of 22.

Game-changing moment

Mike James and Toko Shengelia brought CSKA within 57-55 early in the fourth quarter. Barcelona needed a go-to guy and Alex Abrines stepped up with a critical three-pointer and a wild dunk-and-foul. The hosts never looked back after that moment.

Stellar stat

Barcelona shot the ball better from all distances and outrebounded CSKA 33-27. The hosts made 59.5% of their shots inside the arc and 42.9% from three-point territory. CSKA made only 46.9% two-point shots and 29.6% from downtown.

Did you know?

For the first since 2013, Barcelona won its first showdown of the season against CSKA. In the last five previous seasons, CSKA always beat Barcelona in the teams' first game of the season.

Next game

Both teams return to the competition on Thursday, October 8. CSKA hosts Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv in a rematch of the 2006 and 2008 EuroLeague championship games. That same day, Barcelona visits Zenit St Petersburg. Xavi Pascual, the last coach to win a EuroLeague title with Barcelona in 2010, is with Zenit now.

Nikola Mirotic - FC Barcelona - EB20
Thursday, October 1, 2020
Euroleague.net
Referees: CHRISTODOULOU, CHRISTOS; JAVOR, DAMIR; ROSSI, MICHELE
Attendance: 0
By Quarter1234
FC Barcelona24171421
CSKA Moscow14191518
End of Quarter1234
FC Barcelona24415576
CSKA Moscow14334866
FC Barcelona
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
0 DAVIES, BRANDON 24:31 18 7/9   4/5   4 4     3 1   4 7 20
8 HANGA, ADAM 14:11 7 2/2 1/2     3 3 1 1 1 1   2   9
9 BOLMARO, LEANDRO DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
10 SMITS, ROLANDS 12:02 2 1/1     1   1 1   2 1   2 1 2
13 HEURTEL, THOMAS 15:25 4 1/3 0/2 2/2         1 2       1  
14 PUSTOVYI, ARTEM DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
18 ORIOLA, PIERRE 9:19                   3     4   -7
21 ABRINES, ALEX 32:23 13 1/1 3/5 2/3 3 4 7 3     1   1 2 22
22 HIGGINS, CORY 26:13 8 3/8 0/1 2/2 1 1 2 4 2     1 1 1 9
30 CLAVER, VICTOR 12:50           4 4           2   2
33 MIROTIC, NIKOLA 28:54 17 5/8 1/3 4/5   7 7 1 4 5     3 6 21
99 CALATHES, NICK 24:12 7 2/5 1/2     3 3 7 1 1     3 1 11
Team           1 1 2     2          
Totals 200:00 76 22/37 6/15 14/17 6 27 33 17 9 19 4 1 22 19 89
        59.5% 40% 82.4%
Head coach: JASIKEVICIUS, SARUNAS
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
CSKA Moscow
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
3 BOLOMBOY, JOEL 21:25 6 3/6 0/1   2 2 4   1 3   2 1 1 2
4 KHOMENKO, ALEXANDER DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
5 JAMES, MIKE 28:35 13 2/3 1/5 6/9   1 1 4   6   1 2 6 7
6 HILLIARD, DARRUN 23:06 8 1/4 2/4     2 2 3 1       5   4
7 UKHOV, IVAN 6:27 3 0/1 1/3     1 1     1   1   1  
10 HACKETT, DANIEL 27:15 11 1/5 3/4     2 2 2 1 2     2 3 10
11 ANTONOV, SEMEN DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
17 VOIGTMANN, JOHANNES 14:57 2 1/2 0/3   1 3 4 2         3 1 2
21 CLYBURN, WILL 30:23 8 3/6 0/3 2/5 2 2 4 1 1       2 6 9
23 SHENGELIA, TORNIKE 32:33 15 4/6 1/4 4/4 3 2 5 3     1   3 4 20
28 LOPATIN, ANDREI DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
41 KURBANOV, NIKITA 15:19           2 2 1   1     1   1
Team           1 2 3     3          
Totals 200:00 66 15/33 8/27 12/18 9 19 28 16 4 16 1 4 19 22 55
        45.5% 29.6% 66.7%
Head coach: ITOUDIS, DIMITRIS

Head Coaches

JASIKEVICIUS, SARUNAS
FC Barcelona
"Congratulations to our players and fans, who unfortunately had to stay home, because this was a game that, I am sure, every basketball fan in Catalonia wanted to see. Congratulations on the win. It is always a great pleasure to win against such a great team like CSKA. I think that, for the majority of the game, we played very good basketball. As usual, CSKA will come back. They will get back into the game and I think we found a way to control ourselves and when they got down to only 2 points, we were able to control ourselves and find a way to score and make a very good run. It is always difficult to bounce back and we did that. We played a very good game and in the end, CSKA hurt us a lot in the third quarter. It is also true that we have problems when it comes to finishing games. When we are playing better, we always miss our concentration. It happened again tonight and I want to work on this as much as I can. A team like Barcelona must always seal the outcome and not allow opponents to return to the game."
ITOUDIS, DIMITRIS
CSKA Moscow
"Congratulations to Barcelona. They played better and deserved to win this game. Regarding my team and the game in general, we will get into the deep analysis. We have a lot of things to say, but over here, in a short period, I would say this: that the game was decided in the first and fourth quarters, which Barcelona won by 13 points, and on the second and the third, we won by 3 points. Why I am saying this? Because on the first and fourth quarter, we turned over the ball 12 times and this is why we lost the most, and in the second and third quarters, we turned over the ball only 4 times. This is the quarter, the third quarter, in which Barcelona had 7 turnovers. We managed to force turnovers and get steals, but we came to shoot over here with 29% three-pointers, 66% free throws and 46% in twos. Definitely, that goes in the side of Barcelona and its defense, but I think we have pretty experienced guards, forwards and bigs that can handle the ball in each and every situation. As I said, congratulations to Barcelona but with so many turnovers and that poorly shooting ability, we came to 57-55 with 8 minutes to go and we had a good defense and an open look. We gave our fight, but that is not enough for this level. Inevitably, we were missing rhythm. We were slow. We had a bad execution and not the spirit or the mentality to go and fight from the beginning, so Barcelona, well-deserved, won the game."

Players

ABRINES, ALEX
FC Barcelona
"We played against the reigning champions. We knew it was not going to be easy, but I think we did a great job during those 40 minutes and I think we deserved that win. They have a great team and can score the ball. It was not going to be easy. They have an amazing talent to score the ball, but we also have it and I think 66 points [allowed] says a lot about our defense."
DAVIES, BRANDON
FC Barcelona
"They made a run, especially in the third quarter, and we had to dig deep and stick together during times like that. Good teams like that are going to make runs, but I am proud of the guys and how we stuck together."
SHENGELIA, TORNIKE
CSKA Moscow
"Our plan was to win the game, to go out and play hard, physical, aggressive, especially defensively. We did not do it in the first and last quarters. This are the quarters that we lost. We are still learning how to play with each other. We have a couple of new guys, we are still learning. We must play much better defense, starting from me. We did not start good, as I said, I was terrible defensively, we tried to pick it up later, but it was late. It was a good lesson for us."
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