From 9pm (CET), Paris Basketball y Barça They measure forces in the 16th day of the Euroleague. A meeting, which will be experienced tonight in the Adidas Arena, in which Xavi Pascual and his players They will seek to continue their good momentum and extend their streak of consecutive victories to seven (four in Europe).
To do this, the Barça expedition travels to the French capital to face a Parisian outfit in low hours, but with a lot of danger, especially at home. In the Euroleague, the team that trains Francesco Tabellini accumulates four consecutive setbacks, to which we must add the one this last weekend in the league, against Nancy (97-90).
Paris, a project 'razed' last summer
Paris blames the rout it suffered last summer, in which they only managed to retain one Nadir Hifi who is the top scorer in the Euroleague, with an average of 20.9 points per game. T.J. Shorts (Panathinaikos), Tyson Ward (Olympiacos), Mikael Jantunen (Fenerbahce) o Kevarrius Hayes (Monaco) are losses that have strengthened some of the great projects in the competition. Besides, Tiago Splitter continues to grow as a coach, being the main coach of the Portland Trail Blazers.
Kevin Punter, ante Nadir Hifi / Valentine Enrich
It is true that Paris is not as scary as last year, in which, at this stage of the competition, it was flying at the top of the standings. Now, the film is different (16th with five wins and 10 losses), but the DNA remains: They are a team that loves to run and put a dizzying pace on the court, especially in attack.
Pascual's warnings
“They put a lot of rhythm, it is a team that plays very well in the first seconds and they have a lot of scoring. Normally, in games against them, the number of possessions is very high. Therefore, It is a game in which, beyond the fact that we can counteract a little defensively, above all, we have to play well in attack, because if we want to win we will have to score,” Pascual commented in the preview.
Xavi Pascual, Barça coach / Dani Barbeito
Paris, the highest scoring team in the Euroleague
And despite this bad moment they are going through, Paris arrives at the event being the team that scores the most points per game, with an average of 91.3. It remains to be seen how the Barça defense can minimize the French offensive talent: In the Euroleague, Pascual's Barça concedes 79 goals per duel.
The game arrives in the middle of a roller coaster of a infernal calendar. It will be the third game in five days after the duels against Olympiakos from last Friday and Baxi Manresa last Sunday. A situation in which Pascual has avoided any “excuse”, but in which it must be taken into account that the squad was loaded with more minutes than expected at the Nou Congost due to the barrage of injuries that the Gavà coach had to deal with.
For the match in Paris, Pascual will not be able to count on the injured Jan Vesely and Toko Shengelia, who stayed in Barcelona along with Laprovittola, who is facing the final phase of his recovery. On the other hand, Joel Parra is a doubt, who trained with a protective mask after the blow he received during the match against Olympiacos. The reserve team players Sayon Keita and Nikola Kusturica complete the squad.
