2019-20Regular SeasonRound 22
FC Barcelona 90
Zenit St Petersburg 72
January 30, 2020 CET: 21:00
Local time: 21:00 PALAU BLAUGRANA

Barca's Kuric, Delaney overpower Zenit

FC Barcelona got its third straight win by defeating Zenit St Petersburg 90-72 at Palau Blaugrana on Thursday night. The hosts used a monster offensive performance in the second quarter, in which they outscored Zenit 32-14, to build a 20-point lead and never looked back. Barca improved to 16-6 to stay second alongside CSKA Moscow and Real Madrid, while Zenit dropped to 7-15. Kyle Kuric and Malcolm Delaney led Barcelona with 21 points each on an almost perfect shooting night from the former, with 5-of-6 three-pointers, followed by Nikola Mirotic with 15 points in just 17 minutes. Andrew Albicy scored 16 points and Gustavo Ayon posted a double-double of 14 points and 10 rebounds in defeat.

Zenit got an early 2-4 lead behind a couple of inside buckets from Ayon, but Barcelona reacted quickly with a 10-0 run behind three-pointers from Victor Claver and Mirotic to take charge at 12-4. Ayon kept rocking, as he scored his team’s first 7 points until Will Thomas took over with a triple to make it 15-10. Even though Delaney contributed later with 4 points of its own for Barcelona, Zenit had already found its momentum on offense. Being dominant on the offensive glass, Zenit found Albicy from downtown to tie the game, 21-21, at the end of the first quarter. The visitor’s reaction came to its end when Kuric decided to take over. He scored all his team’s points in a 9-0 run in just 2 minutes to put Barcelona in front 30-21. Kuric’s amazing second-quarter display didn’t finish there, as he added his third and fourth triples later to build a double-digit lead, 42-38, right before he took a breath with 4 minutes to halftime. Nonetheless, Zenit's struggles didn’t end when Kuric went out, as Delaney took over with 8 points in a row. Mirotic joined the party later to set a 53-31 advantage for the hosts with a corner three, right before Tim Abromaitis and Albicy reduced it to 53-35 at the break.

The trend didn’t change when the game restarted, as Thomas Heurtel made his first three-pointer of the season after his long-term injury and Mirotic made it 65-42 with 7 points of its own in a 5-minute span. Zenit hadn’t said its last word, however, as Ayon and Abromaitis combined for a 0-9 run that brought some hope to the visitors. Barcelona reacted immediately then, finding timely triples by Heurtel, Claver and Kuric to recover a 20-point lead, 74-54, entering the last quarter. Zenit tried to look for a miracle by switching defenses, but it never got closer than 14 points, and when it did, Barcelona responded strongly from downtown with Delaney and Alex Abrines to remove all doubts about the outcome.

Kuric, once again

Barcelona guard Kyle Kuric played for Zenit in the 2017-18 season, when he was the EuroCup Top 16 MVP and an All-EuroCup Second Team selection. In their previous encounter in Round 2, Kuric led his team with 24 points on 4-of-4 three-point shooting and he did it again in Round 22 by posting 21 points, including 5-of-6 from downtown.

Lethal duo

After a slow start, Zenit used its offensive rebounding power to tie the game at the end of the first quarter, but it couldn’t prevent Barcelona from escaping in the second. Nine points in a row by Kyle Kuric set the tone for Barcelona in the first 2 minutes before Malcolm Delaney took over later when Kuric needed to rest. The former ended up scoring 15 points in that second quarter, while the latter added another 12 of his own to boost the hosts to a 32-14 stretch.

It feels good to be back

Thomas Huertel hadn’t played a single EuroLeague game this season after getting injured last summer. His long-awaited comeback was more than remarkable, as he scored 8 points and dished 7 assists in just 18 minutes.

What’s next?

In Round 23 next week will see Barcelona stay in Spain to play a road game against Valencia Basket on Wednesday, February 5. Zenit St Petersburg will host Fenerbahce BEKO Istanbul the same day.

Kyle Kuric - FC Barcelona - EB19
Thursday, January 30, 2020
Euroleague.net
Referees: CHRISTODOULOU, CHRISTOS; KOLJENSIC, MILOS ; ZAMOJSKI, JAKUB
Attendance: 5893
By Quarter1234
FC Barcelona21322116
Zenit St Petersburg21141918
End of Quarter1234
FC Barcelona21537490
Zenit St Petersburg21355472
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 17:04 4 2/5     2 1 3 1 1   1   5 3 5
5 RIBAS, PAU DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
8 HANGA, ADAM 19:15     0/1     2 2     3     1 2 -1
10 SMITS, ROLANDS 1:10               1             1
13 HEURTEL, THOMAS 18:27 8   2/5 2/2 1 2 3 7   2     3 2 12
18 ORIOLA, PIERRE 26:32 6 2/4 0/1 2/2 1 3 4 2 2 3 1     1 10
21 ABRINES, ALEX 4:19 3   1/3                       1
23 DELANEY, MALCOLM 25:52 21 4/5 4/10 1/3   2 2 3   3     3 2 13
24 KURIC, KYLE 26:52 21 3/6 5/6     3 3 4     1 1 4 1 21
30 CLAVER, VICTOR 25:15 6   2/3   1 3 4 1 1 1     1   9
33 MIROTIC, NIKOLA 17:09 15 3/4 3/6   1 1 2 2 1 1     1 2 16
44 TOMIC, ANTE 18:05 6 3/3 0/1   1 3 4 1 2         2 14
Team           2 1 3               3
Totals 200:00 90 17/27 17/36 5/7 9 21 30 22 7 13 3 1 18 15 104
        63% 47.2% 71.4%
Head coach: PESIC, SVETISLAV
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
Zenit St Petersburg
  Rebounds Blocks Fouls
# Player Min Pts 2FG 3FG FT O D T As St To Fv Ag Cm Rv PIR
4 IVERSON, COLTON 8:46   0/1       1 1     2     2   -4
6 ALBICY, ANDREW 26:44 16 1/1 4/8 2/4 1 3 4 3 1 1       6 23
7 PONKRASHOV, ANTON 9:10   0/1 0/2         3   1       1  
9 HOLLINS, AUSTIN 21:45 5 1/3 1/5   1 1 2 1 3   1 1 1 1 5
10 THOMAS, WILL 24:50 7 2/4 1/4   2 3 5 1 1 1     2 2 8
11 BALASHOV, SERGEI 4:32 4 2/3     1 1 2           1   4
12 RENFROE, ALEX 8:57 1 0/2 0/1 1/2 1   1 1   1       1 -1
14 PUSHKOV, ANTON 17:19 6 3/7     3   3 1   1     2 1 4
16 TRUSHKIN, VLADISLAV 13:53 6   2/5   1 2 3 2 1           9
18 VORONOV, EVGENY 24:57 2 0/2 0/2 2/2 1 1 2 3   1   1 4 1 -2
21 ABROMAITIS, TIM 20:18 9 3/3 1/2   3 1 4   1 3       1 11
34 AYON, GUSTAVO 18:49 16 7/11   2/4 5 5 10 3 1 5   1 3 4 19
Team           1 1 2               2
Totals 200:00 72 19/38 9/29 7/12 20 19 39 18 8 16 1 3 15 18 78
        50% 31% 58.3%
Head coach: PLAZA, JOAN

Head Coaches

PESIC, SVETISLAV
FC Barcelona
"I’m happy that he [Heurtel] started to play. He still needs time, no more, no less. Thanks to our excellent second quarter, we improved our defense, we controlled the offensive rebounds as we should. We played excellent in offense, with 66% in two-point shooting and 59% in three-pointers at the end of the first half, and we won the game. We kept concentration and in the EuroLeague, it’s always difficult to bring the game the way to the place you want to. They played good basketball, with good concepts, like they do every day. We won the game and we are happy."
PLAZA, JOAN
Zenit St Petersburg
"What I think right now is that we began the game pretty well, knowing that we needed to match their effort, we cannot match their physical capacity because they are stronger than us. It's obvious right now and even if we tied the first quarter, we lost the third by 2, we won the fourth by 2, they broke the game in the second quarter. There is nothing to say about that. Sometimes, when you play against one team, one player like Kuric or like Delaney, when they get hot, it doesn’t matter even if you play with six players. But in any case, they have this talent, this capacity, and we suffered their physical defense in many moments, especially in the second quarter where they break the game."

Players

KURIC, KYLE
FC Barcelona
"I think we played a very good game overall and especially in the first half. In the second half, we kind of let them come back a little bit but we finished off strong and it was a good effort. [Thomas Heurtel] is a very good point guard, one of the best in Europe, and it’s nice to have him back. Now we have two healthy point guards and that’s a good thing for us to get better."
DELANEY, MALCOLM
FC Barcelona
"I’m satisfied with the victory, but we still gave up too many offensive rebounds, but we know that they lead the EuroLeague and that they take a lot of threes. They had everybody on the glass and we got to control that in the next couple of games, but I like the way we play, we shared the ball, got stops when we needed to, we played our style of basketball. We control what we can control, we don’t really look at anything else. If we keep winning, we control our own destiny and that’s what it’s all about."