Barça seeks to link wins to a disturbing Red Star
BARCELONA, Jan. 22 (SportsFinding) –
Barça receives this Thursday the Red Star of Belgrade in the Palau Blaugrana –21.00 / DAZN–, on the 21st day of the Euroleague, with the intention of opening a new winning streak and the conviction of having everything in order to beat, however, a disturbing opponent who is living a good time.
They arrive with two consecutive defeats at home, but this Red Star has demonstrated its level lately and has taken the pleasure of winning away from home, as it did before ASVEL Villeurbanne or Zenit of St. Petersburg.
The Serbs have won seven of their last eleven games and present themselves in Barcelona with that desire to continue climbing positions and forgetting the unexpected stumbles against Zalgiris and ALBA Berlin before their fans.
Barça, which won Fenerbahçe at home (74-80) to leave behind a bad series of three straight defeats – Baskonia, Anadolu Efes and Maccabi -, wants to continue on the path of triumph and hopes to win again in a Palau who wants to make it impregnable, even though CSKA and Anadolu Efes have won it.
The good news of the return to training of Thomas Heurtel, who in August 2019 was operated on a partial rupture of the patellar tendon of the left knee, hopes to recover him soon for the competition. For now, yes, Adam Hanga and Malcolm Delaney will continue to command the team as '1'.
Delaney, key with his triples and his electricity in Turkey, will be one of the figures to follow in this duel that is predicted physical and tedious, just as the Blaugrana parish is trusted to see the best Nikola Mirotic or Cory Higgins. In front, Kevin Punter is the top Serbian gunner (15.5 points on average) and one of his weapons along with Vladimir Stimac or Billy Baron.
DATA SHEET.
–EQUIPMENT.
BARÇA: Hanga, Higgins, Claver, Mirotic and Davies – possible initial five; Ribas, Smits, Oriola, Abrines, Delaney, Kuric and Tomic.
RED STAR: Baron, Lazic, Brown, Simanic and Kuzmic – possible initial five; Punter, Dobric, Gist, Jenkins, Jovanovic, Eye and Stimac.
– ARBITRATORS: Latisevs, Pastusiak and Shemmesh.
– PAVILION: Palau Blaugrana.