Nikola Mirotic stepped up with a career-best performance against his former team in one of basketball’s greatest rivalries on Friday, leading FC Barcelona to a 93-80 win over Real Madrid to earn the MVP honor of Round 14. Mirotic set a new career-high with a performance index rating of 39 and tied his career best in scoring with 31 points. In 29 minutes on the floor, Mirotic went 4-for-4 on two-pointers, 3-for-6 on triples and 14-for-15 at the free throw line. He completed a double-double with a game-high 10 rebounds to go with 1 assist and 9 drawn fouls. This is Mirotic’s eighth MVP of the Round honor and second this season. Following in second place was Nikola Milutinov, who ruled inside in CSKA Moscow’s 51-73 win at Zalgiris Kaunas. His 36 PIR, the second-best of his career, came with 19 points on 8-for-9 two-point shooting and 12 rebounds. He also had a steal and a block, and 5 drawn fouls, in 26 minutes. Next, with a PIR of 35, came Jan Vesely who starred as Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul went on the road to beat Zenit St Petersburg 80-86. Vesely poured in 22 first-half points on the way to a career-high 32, making 9 of 11 two-pointers and 2 of 3 threes. He also picked up 5 rebounds, an assist and a steal. Fourth on the list of Round 14 performances was Lorenzo Brown of UNICS Kazan, who orchestrated a 74-85 road win at Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv with 26 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists for a PIR of 30, his highest for a road game in three EuroLeague seasons. Wrapping up the list of this week’s top five performers is Vladimir Lucic, whose 18 points, 12 rebounds and 4 assists for a 29 PIR paced FC Bayern Munich to an 83-71 home win against Anadolu Efes Istanbul.
Individual highs: Daniel Hackett, CSKA, 6 steals
Vesely led all scorers with 32 points, his career-high. Elie Okobo of LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne remains the league’s overall scoring leader with 17.7 points per game. Lucic and Milutinov each had 12 rebounds, the most in this round. Georgios Papagiannis of Panathinaikos OPAP Athens leads the league, averaging 8.1 rebounds. Darryl Macon dished 11 assists, more than any player in Round 14. Nick Calathes of FC Barcelona tops the season-long assist rankings with 5.7 per game. Daniel Hackett of CSKA had a career-best 6 steals, more than any player this week and tied for most in any game this season. John Brown of UNICS tops the charts with 2.6 steals per game. Papagiannis led all players this week with 4 blocked shots. Walter Tavares of Real Madrid remains the top shot-blocker with 1.8 per game. There were four double-doubles this round, Macon with 20 points and 11 assists, Papagiannis with 14 points and 10 rebounds, Mirotic, Milutinov and Lucic.
