Zunder Palencia 83-84 Barça: Epic win

Barça had to battle all the way to come home victorious from Zunder Palencia (83-84), with Laprovittola quite outstanding in a game that went right down to the wire ahead of the trip to Real Madrid on Sunday.

There wasn't a spare seat in the house for Palencia's first ever game in the top flight, and although the mood was quickly dampened by a strong blaugrana start, by the end of the first period some accurate 3-point shooting had the home side right back in contention (18-19).

Palencia were starting to rise to the occasion, and the niggest difference between the teams was that Barça had Lapro and Palancia didn't. An 11-2 streak from Barça finally had the kind of scoreline that might have been expected on paper.

But the home side were determined not to go down without a fight, and with Brown and the experienced Vitor Benite truly starting to shine, they not only got back into the game but actually took the lead.

Barça seemed to have lost all shape in offence, and with 5 minutes to go, they were suddenly six points down. It looked like curtains for the Catalans, and in the final seconds Laprovittola had no option but to deliberately miss a free throw and hope his team could quickly grand the two they needed to tie the game and send it into overtime.

And that's exactly what happened. Barça were off the hook in the most dramatic of fashions. The additional five minutes were utter mayhem. Points were exchanged, and it was all down to who would be ahead when the buzzer went. Ice cool Laprovittola was again required to produce last second magic. And the Argentinian did it. Barça had won on the road in an absolutely terrific game of hoops.

MATCH STATS

Zunder Palencia: 83
Barça: 84

Zunder Palencia: Ortega (4), Brown (18), Benite (10), Pasecniks (0), Leissner (0), Haarms (13), Van der Vuurst (6), Kamba (5), Ndiaye (5), Franke (11), Rodriguez (-), Ubal (0).

Barça: Da Silva (0), Satoransky (3), Hernangomez (17), Laprovittola (15), Parra (9), Kalinic (4), Parker (8), Brizuela (0), Abrines (9), Nnaji (0), Jokubaitis (4)

Periods: 18-19, 7-15 // 23-16, 24-22

Referees: Miguel Ángel Perez Perez, Carlos Cortés, Fabio Fernandez