2021-22Regular SeasonRound 1
FC Barcelona 96
ALBA Berlin 64
October 01, 2021 CET: 21:00
Local time: 21:00 PALAU BLAUGRANA

Barcelona thrashes ALBA at home

FC Barcelona had a solid start to the 2021-22 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season by downing ALBA Berlin 96-64 in front of 3,000 fans at Palau Blaugrana on Friday. In its first EuroLeague home game with fans since March 2020, Barcelona welcomed them back with a no-doubt-about-it victory. Nikola Mirotic led the winners with 22 points on a perfect shooting night. Rokas Jokubaitis added 12 for Barcelona. Luke Sikma led ALBA with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Maodo Lo added 12 points for the guests. Nikola Mirotic and Nick Calathes each had 5 points in a 12-2 opening run. Barcelona kept excelling on offense to boost its margin to 28-15 after 10 minutes and then again to 50-28 at halftime. Nothing changed after the break, as an unstoppable Mirotic allowed Barcelona to get a 56-29 margin and the hosts kept a comfortable lead until the final buzzer.

Calathes followed a triple with a driving layup in a 7-0 opening run for Barca. Sikma stepped up with a put-back layup and Yovel Zoosman scored in transition but an unstoppable Mirotic boosted Barcelona's lead to 14-4. Lo banked in a running shot and Sikma hit a floater for ALBA but Barcelona kept attacking the rim as Nigel Hayes-Davis, Brandon Davies and Sertac Sanli all scored down low for a 20-8 margin. Louis Olinde tried to change things for ALBA, getting help from Tim Schneider to bring the guests a bit closer, 25-15. Kyle Kuric struck from downtown to fix the score at 28-15 after 10 minutes. Jokubaitis took over with an up-and-under layup early in the second quarter and followed Rolands Smits's layup with a three-pointer that broke the game open, 35-15, after a 10-0 run. ALBA found a go-to guy in Lo, who brought his team within 39-22. Cory Higgins sank a triple and Davies added a power layup to restore a 44-24 Barcelona margin. Davies scored again and found Mirotic for a backdoor layup, good for a 50-29 Barcelona lead at halftime.

Mirotic struck twice from beyond the arc right after the break. Sikma and Zoosman tried to change things for ALBA but Mirotic insisted from downtown for a 59-35 Barcelona margin. Sikma and Davies traded layups, then Tamir Blatt and Malte Delow each hit three-pointers to bring ALBA within 63-46 after 30 minutes. Barcelona found a new go-to guy in Smits, who scored twice in the paint. Jaleen Smith and Jonas Mattisseck each nailed a three-pointer to give the guests hope, 67-53, with 7 minutes left. Jokubaitis joined the three-point shootout and added a couple of driving layups to keep Barcelona out of trouble, 74-56. Nothing changed after that, as Barcelona cruised to a very convincing home win.

Pivotal performer

Nikola Mirotic pleased his fans in their return to Palau Blaugrana in a EuroLeague game with an outstanding performance. He finished the game with 22 points on 4-of-4 two-pointers, 4-of-4 three-pointers and 2-of-2 free throws. Mirotic added 5 rebounds, an assist, a steal and 2 fouls drawn for a PIR of 31 – all in less than 18 minutes.

Game-changing sequence

Barcelona rolled since the very beginning of the game, but made the difference midway through the first half. Kyle Kuric hit a three-pointer for a 28-15 margin after 10 minutes, igniting a 10-0 run in which Rokas Jokubaitis added a layup and a bomb from downtown. That run allowed Barcelona to get a 35-15 margin and gave the hosts full control of the game.

Stellar stat

Barcelona had stellar shooting percentages in Round 1, hitting 61.0% of its two-point shots (25-of-41) and 66.7% from downtown (14-of-21). It finished the game with 28 assists and just 14 turnovers. On the other hand, ALBA shot the ball poorly (40.5% 2FG, 29.6% 3FG) and was outrebounded by 41-27.

Did you know?

Sikma set a new ALBA club record for most offensive rebounds, pulling down 7 tonight. The previous record was shared by Yassin Idbihi (2013), Blagota Sekulic (2009), Immanuel McElroy (2008) and Jovo Stanojevic (2002), who all had grabbed 6 offensive rebounds for ALBA .

Next game

Both teams return to EuroLeague action next week. Barcelona visits FC Bayern Munich on Thursday, October 7 at 20:30 CET. A day later, ALBA hosts LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne in the German capital.

Rokas Jokubaitis - FC Barcelona - EB21
Friday, October 1, 2021
Euroleague.net
Referees: BELOSEVIC, ILIJA; NEDOVIC, MILAN; THEPENIER, HUGUES
Attendance: 3049
By Quarter1234
FC Barcelona28221333
ALBA Berlin15141718
End of Quarter1234
FC Barcelona28506396
ALBA Berlin15294664
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 16:28 8 4/8   0/1 1 2 3 1   1     1 2 7
5 SANLI, SERTAC 14:03 8 4/7       2 2     2 2   2   5
8 MARTINEZ, SERGI 13:44 6 3/4     3 2 5 3         1   12
10 SMITS, ROLANDS 16:49 6 3/3 0/3   2 2 4   1 1     1   6
14 HAYES-DAVIS, NIGEL 14:56 2 1/4 0/1 0/1 2   2 1       1 1 1 -1
18 ORIOLA, PIERRE 15:06 7 2/3 1/1     2 2 2   1 1 1 2   7
20 LAPROVITTOLA, NICOLAS 21:31 9 0/1 3/3     2 2 7   2     3 1 13
22 HIGGINS, CORY 18:46 5 0/1 1/4 2/2   1 1 1   2     1 4 4
24 KURIC, KYLE 14:58 6   2/2     1 1     3     1 1 4
31 JOKUBAITIS, ROKAS 17:55 12 3/3 2/2     3 3 6 2       3 1 21
33 MIROTIC, NIKOLA 17:34 22 4/4 4/4 2/2 1 4 5 1 1   1   1 2 31
99 CALATHES, NICK 18:10 5 1/3 1/1   1 4 5 6   2     1 1 12
Team           1 5 6               6
Totals 200:00 96 25/41 14/21 4/6 11 30 41 28 4 14 4 2 18 13 127
        61% 66.7% 66.7%
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
ALBA Berlin
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
0 LO, MAODO 20:22 12 4/7 1/3 1/2   1 1     1   2   3 7
3 SMITH, JALEEN 19:40 7 0/2 2/4 1/2 1 2 3 2 1       1 2 9
6 DELOW, MALTE 12:28 3   1/2             1     1    
8 ERIKSSON, MARCUS 20:34 2 0/2 0/4 2/2           1     2 3 -4
9 MATTISSECK, JONAS 12:15 3 0/1 1/3     1 1           2   -1
10 SCHNEIDER, TIM 14:56 2 1/1 0/1     1 1 2 1 1         4
19 OLINDE, LOUIS 16:16 6 1/3 1/4 1/2       3     1   3 5 6
43 SIKMA, LUKE 25:56 16 8/12 0/2   7 4 11 4   1     3 2 23
45 BLATT, TAMIR 11:30 6 0/2 2/3         3   1   1   1 5
50 ZOOSMAN, YOVEL 23:11 5 2/6 0/1 1/2 2 2 4 1 2   1 1   2 8
55 LAMMERS, BEN 22:52 2 1/6       2 2 1 1 1     1   -1
Team           4   4     1         3
Totals 200:00 64 17/42 8/27 6/10 14 13 27 16 5 8 2 4 13 18 59
        40.5% 29.6% 60%
Head coach: GONZALEZ, ISRAEL

Head Coaches

JASIKEVICIUS, SARUNAS
FC Barcelona
"Congratulations to our fans, to our players for the good start of the EuroLeague. I am very happy to start in the right way, very important in this very difficult stretch for us of four games in six days. Everybody played together. I think the guys really enjoyed today. I think it is amazing that every time, we have more and more fans. That's pretty much the essence of the sport, and we will go from here. We played well for long periods of time. We kept our focus. We went down a bit in the third quarter, but that is more my fault than the players' fault. I started to rotate the team and think on what comes next, so that everybody is happy, everybody plays. That is a little bit of an excuse but it happens sometimes. We came out very structured and serious, and kept all that throughout the game."
GONZALEZ, ISRAEL
ALBA Berlin
"First thing, congratulations to Barcelona; they played a very good game. They played very good on defense, very good on offense, with very nice plays, and they played much better than us today. We are not 100% now. We knew this before the game. We miss a lot of players, a lot of injured players, especially in the 'five' position. We knew that it was going to be very difficult today but I think the team, in the beginning, was surprised by the level that Barcelona showed in the game. We never stopped working and I am happy because we made Barcelona get 15 turnovers. We faced the second half with good energy. In fact, we won the third quarter and the team was trying to do the things as they could. For that, we have to be a little happy about this. Of course, we are disappointed to lose, but our goal right now is to recover players, to improve, to do things better for the next games."

Players

JOKUBAITIS, ROKAS
FC Barcelona
"We had an excellent fourth quarter. As the coach said at halftime, we had to come prepared for the third quarter and they came back a little bit. We took their punch and it gave it back to them on double power; you see the score. We are happy, fans are happy, let's move on. It was incredible, a very good atmosphere. This game, for our team and for me, was very good."
MIROTIC, NIKOLA
FC Barcelona
"I am very happy and excited about this game. We were looking forward to playing our first EuroLeague game at home with our fans, and it was a really good job by the team, not allowing (ALBA) to score many points. We were huge on defense; everybody scored, everybody played well. So, it was a perfect beginning of the season. It is all about the team. It is always about my teammates and our coaching staff. It was just great to be back and enjoy this game that I love so much. I am very happy and this is just the beginning. We have to keep grinding as a team and get better – me, personally, as well. Keep looking forward!"
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