Barcelona restated their title ambitions by thrashing Deportivo La Coruna 8-0 away from home, with Luis Suarez scoring four times and contributing three assists as they showed no mercy.
The Uruguayan scored twice in the first half and Ivan Rakitic grabbed the third early in the second half, before Suarez quickly doubled his tally. Lionel Messi had provided two assists for Suarez and finally got on the scoresheet by tapping home after a brilliant move by the Uruguayan, while defender Marc Bartra scored a brilliant individual goal before Neymar rounded off the scoring to end his goal drought.
Barca desperately needed a response in Galicia after losing three games in a row and letting Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid back into the title race.
Barca had drawn their last two games with Deportivo after taking two-goal leads, but had an encouraging record at Riazor, winning 5-4 there in 2012-13 and 4-0 last season.
Fernando Torres' 38th-minute strike kept Atletico Madrid level on points with Barcelona after a 1-0 defeat of Athletic Bilbao.
Atletico, which had knocked Barca out of the Champions League and caught the Catalans on points in the La Liga race over the past week, kept the pressure on their Blaugrana rival with a gritty display at San Mames.
Torres, who has been in fine form of late, headed perfectly past Gorka Iraizoz from a well-placed Antoine Griezmann lobbed through ball.
Diego Simeone's men and the Blaugrana are sitting on 79 points with four rounds left to play.
Real Madrid kept pace but remain a point back of the leading pack after turning in a convincing 3-0 win versus fourth-placed Villarreal.
Goals from Karim Benzema, Lucas Vazquez and Luka Modric gave the hosts all they needed, while the Real defence was solid in keeping a clean sheet in front of Keylor Navas.
Zinedine Zidane's team started the match trailing Barcelona for the top spot in La Liga by just one point. With Luis Enrique's side soundly beating Deportivo, Real were under pressure to earn all three points to keep pace and did so with aplomb.
Next up for Los Blancos is a Champions League semifinal first leg versus Manchester City on Tuesday.
Isma Lopez scored an injury-time winner as Sporting Gijon climbed out of the relegation zone with a surprise 2-1 victory over Sevilla.
Sporting had only won once in 12 league matches and looked on course for another damaging defeat when Vicente Iborra gave Sevilla an early lead at Estadio El Molinon.
An own goal, however, from Grzegorz Krychowiak levelled the score before half-time and then Lopez snatched a dramatic three points for the home side with a cool finish in stoppage time at the end of the second half.
The result means Sporting move above Granada, who play Levante on Thursday, into 17th while Sevilla remain seventh.
Valencia continued their recent revival with a convincing 4-0 defeat of Eibar that was inspired by a hat trick from striker Paco Alcacer.
The victory was their third in succession, following previous successes away at Barcelona and at home over Sevilla, and takes them up to eighth place from 13th, after their recent struggles towards the foot of Spain's top flight.
Since succeeding Gary Neville, Pako Ayestaran -- Rafael Benitez's former assistant manager at Valencia and Liverpool -- has now overseen three wins and a defeat, and ended any lingering fears one of the country's biggest clubs were at risk of relegation.
Federico Ricca struck an injury-time equaliser as Malaga denied Rayo Vallecano a crucial win in a 1-1 draw at Estadio La Rosaleda.
Ricca, a January signing from Uruguayan side Danubio, popped up to turn the ball home in the closing moments to cancel out Jose Baena's fortunate opener.
Press Association contributed to this report.