The visitors made up for a poor first half from three-point range by being lights out the rest of the way
Barcelona caught fire from deep to turn the tide against Olympiacos
It’s advantage FC Barcelona in its series against Olympiacos Piraeus in the 2023-24 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Playoffs. It went right down until the final seconds of overtime, but Jabari Parker kept his cool from the line to seal an 80-82 win and give Barcelona a 2-1 lead in the series.
Although Olympiacos held a 37-32 advantage at halftime, it could have been worse were it not for Nikola Kalinic’s three-pointer with 4 seconds to go before the break. That was just the third made triple of the first half for the visitors, who went 3 for 11 from long range through the first 20 minutes.
Going to another level after halftime
The halftime interval did wonders for Barcelona, though, as it flipped the switch in the opening stages of the third quarter. Roger Grimau would see his men hit 3 three-pointers in quick succession – the first from Tomas Satoransky, then the next from Nico Laprovittola and the last from Parker – as Barcelona took a 40-41 advantage, its first lead since early in the second quarter.
In fact, after halftime, Barcelona would go 8 for 14 from three-point land, the most crucial of which was Satoransky’s triple with 36 seconds to go in overtime as the Blaugrana tied the game at 80-80. Then, in the final seconds of the extra period, Parker became the hero by going 2 for 3 from the charity stripe with 0.5 seconds remaining to decide the game.
“I think that this is a win of belief and the whole team pushing when things are really difficult,” Coach Grimau said to EuroLeague TV afterward. “Finding those spot-ups and making hard threes, defense trying to close the boards. It’s a really good team win.”
Barcelona can now look ahead to Thursday’s Game 4 knowing that it needs just one more win to secure its fourth successive passage to the Final Four.