Barça 76-66 CSKA Moscow: Winning start

Barça have got their Euroleague campaign off to a wonderful start with a 10-point win against CSKA Moscow. Such a convincing display against the defending champions augurs well for the coming campaign.

Strong in defence and offence, Mirotic and Davies had 8 and 6 points respectively in the first period alone as Barça flew into a 24-14 lead. And despite an improvement, the Russians had not been able to cut much into the difference by the time of the break (41-33).

Barça continued to dominate in the third, but couldn’t quite kill off the game, and allowed CSKA to slowly narrow the margin, and if it hadn’t been for tight Barça defence the effects could have been worse.

Instead, Barça held their ground and made sure there were to be no nasty surprises in the home stretch. A 76-66 win in the end and attention now turns back to the domestic championship and a game with Acunsa Gipuzkoa Basket on Sunday (12.30pm CEST).

MATCH STATS

Barça: Calathes (7), Abrines (13), Higgins (8), Mirotic (17), Oriola (-), Davies (18), Hanga (7), Smits (2), Heurtel (4) & Claver (-).
CSKA Moscow: James (13), Ukhov (3), Voigtmann (2), Shengelia (15), Kurbanov (-), Bolomboy (6), Hilliard (8), Hackett (11) & Clyburn (8).

Periods: 24-14 / 41-33 / 55-48 / 76-66