Hiopos Lleida beat FC Barcelona 90-80 at Barris Nord on a night when Oriol Paulí took over against his former team. The forward finished with 27 points, seven rebounds and seven assists, and his 36 valuation helped push Lleida to a second win over Barcelona this season.
The game opened with both teams struggling badly from the field for three minutes, but Lleida quickly found the sharper rhythm. When it moved ahead 15-6, Xavi Pascual called timeout, yet the home side kept pressing and Barcelona’s lack of accuracy from three-point range became clear. The visitors clawed back enough to trail 46-41 at halftime, then stayed close through three quarters at 65-61 before Lleida closed it out in the final minutes.
The loss leaves Barcelona two victories away from third place, a setback that matters because every remaining slip narrows the margin in the race above them. For Lleida, the result carried more than the weight of one upset: it confirmed that the earlier win was no fluke and that Barris Nord can still produce a night when the underdog controls the game from start to finish.
Paulí’s line was the kind that changes the shape of a game without needing much help from the box score. He had 25 points by one stage of the contest, and every surge Barcelona made seemed to meet another response from Lleida, including a 10-0 run that helped the hosts keep their grip on the score. In a game marked by short bursts — 17-6, 20-14, 24-21, 24-24 — the home side made the decisive plays when they mattered most.
The tension for Barcelona is not just the result but the pattern inside it. A team with larger ambitions again found itself chasing after a poor start, unable to turn better stretches into control. Lleida, meanwhile, used the edge of familiarity and Paulí’s authority to make the matchup look less like an upset than a warning.
