Saras and the Search for Leader Higgins

Jasikevicius is giving the shooting guard minutes to recover sensations and return to his best version

The coach considers the American key in his scheme, even more so now that Nikola Mirotic is not there

Last Thursday against Zalgiris the first glimpses of a very recovered Cory Higgins were seen who offered a version that seemed forgotten. The Californian guard has been dealing with physical problems for too long that have weighed him down to the point of last season he was practically blank.

Sarunas Jasikevicius is fully aware of the importance of Barça’s ‘two’ in his scheme and count on him when it comes to establishing his game plan, whoever the rival is. He needs it and even more so now with the loss of a Nikola Mirotic with no near date of reappearance.

In fact, last year he forced his way out of the ring in the Final Four of the Euroleague and the result was disastrous. The coach quickly realized that Cory was not ready to make a difference having first suffered from plantar fasciitis which later caused acute lower back pain. Without competition rhythm, Higgins went back a few squares to continue with his recovery.

Slow and steady improvement

This season he has played eight games: two from the Endesa League with 11 points each (Fuenlabrada and BAXI Manresa), four from the Euroleague against Olympiacos (10), Real Madrid (2), Bayern (3) and Zalgiris (10) plus another two against Joventut with eight points in the final of the Lliga Catalana and five points in the semifinals of the Super Cup.

Nevertheless, only in the last one in Kaunas (73-72) was a version closer to the key player that Saras is looking for seen in the American and that he amply demonstrated in the two Euroleagues he won with Itoudis’s CSKA and, already at Barça, first with Svetislav Pesic on the bench and then with the Lithuanian in his first season at the helm of the team.

Despite the fact that the doctors ask for caution and warn that the player is not yet 100%, the Lithuanian coach continues to give him important minutes because he knows that only in this way will he recover the leader he longs for. He prefers to force the Higgins machine a bit to grant more minutes, for example, to Oriol Paulí. Only in this way will he achieve the rhythm of the competition necessary for him to be important and Saras wants to recover him as soon as possible.

Abrines could play

The Balearic Álex Abrines, who suffered a traumatic brain injury due to a strong blow to the head against Zalgiris, he did not finally go to the hospital in Kaunas and everything indicates that he will finally be left with a scare for one of the players who has offered the best performance so far.

So much so that if there are no setbacks in the next few hours, it is not ruled out even that it is available this Sunday in the complicated duel at the Palau against the leader Lenovo Tenerife at 12:30 p.m.