Seeking a historical 8th seed miracle: Jasikevicius' reasons to be nervous / News - Basketnews.com

Credit: ZUMA Press/D.Repecka - Scanpix Credit ZUMA Press/D.Repecka - Scanpix

How many times has the No. 8 seed beat the No. 1 in the EuroLeague playoffs? Exactly, zero.

FC Barcelona / Schedule

FC Barcelona FC Bayern MunichTue19:00 FC Barcelona FC Bayern MunichThu18:00

NBA has its fairytales, but since the EuroLeague moved to its current regular season format in 2016, none of the No. 8 seeds have ever made it past the quarterfinals.

Although Barcelona has a history of complicating its playoff campaigns.

Barcelona fans remember facing a historically tough series last season when Zenit St. Petersburg pushed their team to the limits. It was the first time in the new-format era when the 8th seeded team forced the series to Game 5.

Barcelona gave away the home-court advantage three times in the entire EuroLeague playoffs history (since 2000).

The last two were against the Greek teams (Panathinaikos in 2011 and Olympiacos in 2015). The first one was in the inaugural EuroLeague season with many familiar faces.

These people now run the biggest basketball clubs all over the world.

Arturas Karnisovas, the executive vice president of basketball operations of the Chicago Bulls. Zoran Savic, the general manager of Partizan Belgrade. Juan Carlos Navarro, the manager of FC Barcelona. Sarunas Jasikevicius, the head coach of FC Barcelona.

They were the biggest stars on the highest European basketball stage in 2000-01. And they were clear favorites to beat Benetton Treviso in the eighth finals.

That year Europe was divided into two major international competitions: EuroLeague, organized by ULEB, and SuproLeague, organized by FIBA.

The EuroLeague regular season format split 24 teams into four groups of 6. The four best in each group made the playoffs that started from the eight finals. Barcelona won the Group D with eight wins in 10 games. Benetton finished 4th with 6-4, behind Olympiacos, Real, and Union Olimpija.

Points this season

46%75,4Points made:75,4Accuracy:45,6%Place in standings:10Record max:97Record min:60Best scorer:Darrun HilliardTeamEuroLeagueStatisticsSchedule

The best-of-three series started in Barcelona.

The hosts had the lead until Marcus Brown started his show. A former NBA player buried four 3-pointers in the third to put Benetton ahead before the last quarter (68-67). Brown finished the game with 30 points, one basket shy of his EuroLeague career-high.

"Marcus Brown was an amazing player. That year we were very unlucky because he had a stress fracture early in the season and was out for 2.5 months. He was an amazing player and person. But without him, we started to struggle,” Marcelo Nicola, the former Benetton forward, now the head coach of the Treviso team, said BasketNews.

Barcelona tried to survive behind Jasikevicius' threes, but Benetton saved the lead and returned home with a huge upset, 86-85.

In the do or die game for Barca, Aito Garcia Reneses' team led by 18 before the halftime (48-30) and showed big ambitions to retrieve the home-court advantage. But Benetton blew them off 29-6 in the third, and Barcelona surrendered at Palaverde 82-99.

"Beating Barcelona was a big result," Marcelo Nicola, who averaged 14 points in the series, said to BasketNews.

"We didn't expect it. They were favorites for sure. We were struggling in the Serie A that year. We had talent, but it was a newly built team. But we took them out," Nicola added.

Sarunas Jasikevicius, who missed all six threes and turned the ball over five times in the second game, probably hardly remembers that loss in Treviso. But he will remind his players for sure what it took for them to advance to the Final Four last season.

Season 1-seed 8-seed Series 2016-17 Real Darussafaka 3-1 2017-18 CSKA Khimki 3-1 2018-19 Fenerbahce Zalgiris 3-1 2019-20 - - - 2020-21 Barcelona Zenit 3-2 2021-22 Barcelona Bayern ?

Barca doesn't need more wake-up calls, though. The EuroLeague regular season winners lost 4 of their last six games (including the Liga Endesa). One of these rare wins for Barca came against Real Madrid after a controversial call at the end of regulation.

"I'm worried because we're at a point in the season where the playoff starts in three days, and the team is on a losing streak that won't stop," long-time Barcelona player Alex Abrines said after an unexpected loss to 15th seeded Zaragoza.

"I am very worried. We are not fighting enough, and we are not being disciplined," coach Jasikevicius added.

Barcelona won both battles over Bayern this year, but it wasn't easy at all.

Barca returned from Munich with an 8-point win 80-72 on October 7. Four months later, Bayern challenged Barcelona at Palau Blaugrana 66-71 on February 1.

Bayern was missing their key players in both games: Vladimir Lucic in Munich and Darrun Hilliard in Barcelona. However, the last match in Palau proved that Bayern still were a hazardous team that managed to put Barca on the ropes.

Bayern played on the foul line, and Barcelona couldn't match their guests' physicality. Germans forced Barcelona to 12 first-half turnovers and stayed in the game until the last seconds.

If only they were a little bit better organized offensively or had a better shot selection that night, they would have had a legit chance to defeat Barcelona.

Barca's defense, 4th best in the league per BBallytics defensive rating, forced Bayern to take bad shots (2FG: 37.8%; 3FG: 42.9%). Their main point guard Corey Walden got in early foul trouble and had a miserable night (-1 PIR, 5 points, 2/6 FG, 2 TO in 12 minutes).

Walden would add a precious backcourt weapon to Andrea Trinchieri, but the American scorer struggled to come back after coronavirus, which sidelined him for a month.

According to BasketNews sources, Walden will miss the start of the series in Barcelona and won't feature in Game 1 and Game 2. Even though he returned to practice, he'll need time to be match fit.

Credit Begum Unal/BasketNews

Barcelona will need to recover their discipline to avoid problems with a very well-coached team like Bayern. Bayern love to switch, and using the mismatches in the paint requires discipline, patience, and execution.

Barcelona is by far the best team in EuroLeague in post-up points (11.5 per Synergy), behind 4th best 2-point shooting percentage (54.9%) and 3rd best offensive rating.

But their primary facilitator in such situation, Brandon Davies, is behind his regular numbers in the last five games (7.8 PPG on 54% 2-point shooting), which also doesn't go in coach Jasikevicius' favor.

BasketNews had five high-profile EuroLeague players making their playoff brackets, and nobody saw Bayern advancing to the Final Four.

And it makes a lot of sense. Nobody did it before from the 8th seed. Bayern is facing the best regular-season team. They're missing their main point guard, and they barely had a full roster available this season.

But there are some legit reasons why Sarunas Jasikevicius is not faking his concern.

Bayern is on a four-game winning streak.

They overcame the third Covid outbreak and are getting back their momentum step by step. They're also building confidence for the playoffs, where they have nothing to lose.

They have one of the most brilliant coaches in the league who tends to overperform with his teams.

They have a versatile, talented team full of fighters.

And Barca is in a small mentality and game crisis at the moment.

Credit D.Repečka/BasketNews.lt

Quick advice for those who see this series as a clear sweep. Never underestimate Trinchieri teams.

Nobody says that Bayern have a shot at advancing past the quarterfinals. But I bet that at some point of the series, we'll hear coach Jasikevicius complaining how everybody was damn wrong not taking this Bayern seriously.

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