Barcelona achieves its first away victory in the Euroleague after beating Besiktas in Istanbul

Barcelona beat Besiktas in Istanbul this Friday (82-95) and achieved its first away victory in the Euroleague, the second in three days. They took the lead early, never trailed again and tied up the team that scored the most triples in the tournament, which was left with eight successes out of 33 attempts, compared to nine out of 20 for the Blaugrana.

After falling in Dubai, Aleksander Sekulic regretted that his team had won three quarters and lost the match. In Turkey the score was the same and the outcome was the opposite: Barça won the first three sets (17-25, 23-27 and 22-25) and only lost the last one (20-18), when there was no longer anything at stake.

The start was rough. Besiktas went up 6-2 with a triple from Dotson and between two technicals, one to Robinson and another to Dotson himself for verbally confronting an opponent. That's where the Turkish command ended. Punter opened the scoring from the perimeter, Umude and Martin chained two triples and a run of 2-18 left the score at 8-20.

The locals threatened at the beginning of the second quarter. Wilbekin and another triple from Dotson brought them within three points (22-25), with Wenyen Gabriel punishing near the rim, and Sekulic stopped the game. In the return, Minaya hit three and Punter had seven points in just a few possessions. A triple by Brizuela from the corner and another by Gibson closed the first half with the highest score until then (40-52).

Morgan opened the second half with a triple, but the local reaction stayed there. Barça found points near the rim with Balcerowski, well supported by Punter, and with Nkamhoua, who also scored from three although he struggled to contain Zizic's physique (10 points and nine rebounds). Gibson got six points from the free throw in that quarter and a triple by Umude stretched the difference to 15 (56-71), the same as the one that entered the last period (62-77).

Besiktas did not go below ten points behind in the final stretch. When Zizic tried with two baskets in a row, Punter, who had not scored in the game since the break, responded with two more to reach 16 points. A two plus one from Nkamhoua in the low post settled the discussion and Wilbekin's late triples (17 points) only served to adjust the score.

Punter, who had just averaged 22 points, added four assists. With him, Gibson (15), Nkamhoua (11) and Balcerowski (11) finished in double figures. Barça will close the week in Murcia.

Valencia remains undefeated. They won on the Asvel court (92-105) after coming back from a game that was trailing by twelve points at the end of the first quarter (33-21) and by eleven at halftime (61-50). Xavi Albert's team turned it around in a second half in which they only conceded 31 points and closed it with a 15-29 in the last quarter, supported by their dominance of the rebound (41-27) and their 13 triples. He has three victories in three days.