He Barça junior has gotten into a little trouble in the Adidas Next Generation Tournament. He has lost his second match, against Overtime Elite (98-102), and needs to win 10 points per Paris tomorrow (1:30 p.m.) to ensure being in Sunday’s final. If their rivals today, the American homegrown team, lose tomorrow to the Alba Berlin, the worst team in the group, any victory against the Parisians would be worth it to the culés. But the normal thing is that the Overtime Elite win tomorrow and force Barça to reach ten points in their duel with Paris to face each other for the European title with the real Madridwhich has already been classified in the other group.
He Barça played a much more irregular match than yesterday’s against Sunrise, with many losses (22) and missed triples (24) that hindered him throughout the game. At halftime they were 2 points down (50-52), with the Americans destroying them from long distance (they finished with a 40% success rate). Mohamed Dabone, the 12-year-old pearl, barely made an appearance in the first part. 1 steal was the only positive in her statistics in 6 minutes of play. The one who did pull the team inside was Sayon Keita, a 16-year-old, 2.12m tall Malian center, who had 14 points, 6 rebounds and a PIR of 19. Together with the great star of the team, Kasparas Jakuciones, was the little that was saved. The Lithuanian had already distributed 10 assists at the beginning of the third quarter (yesterday he broke the record of the Euroleague junior with 17).
At the beginning of the third quarter Keita saw the fourth staff and dabone He had another chance. And this time she didn’t waste it. 7 points, 3 rebounds, 1 block and a PIR of 10 in the next 6 minutes, in addition to the play of the game, a monstrous dunk in the face of the rival’s biggest player, a Marcis Ponder At 2.10 meters tall, he has a body almost twice as big as the culé youth player. With dabone dominating under the boards, Jakucionis directing and Alex Sarr scoring (28 points, 6 rebounds and 7 assists at the end), the Barça achieved a lead of +14, the maximum of the match, which seemed to set the second victory on track. But Overtime Elite I still had something to say.
The Americans gritted their teeth, closed the area and let the culés play it from the perimeter. Since they didn’t have the day they continued to fail until they ended up with only 22.6% of three-pointers made. And in attack they found a game and points machine. Adam Oumiddoch, a shooting guard of Moroccan origin who gave a master class in playing basketball, setting the pace of a game and how to win it. The 16-year-old player scored 26 points with 9/17 shooting, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals and a PIR of 23. And what seemed impossible happened. He Overtime Elite turned the game around and leaves the Barça a little more committed than I was.
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