By Panos Katsiroumbas/ info@eurohoops.net
The fourth week of Euroleague’s Top 16 is past and as the competition gets under way the importance of every game becomes bigger, the excitement increases and the fans are really getting the chance to watch and attend great games between top teams in European basketball. So let’s take a look of the interesting things we observed in the last eight games.
Moscow station
The train of Real Madrid after 31 undefeated games reached its first stop in a real hard way in Moscow against CSKA. The Russian team played without two of the most important players, Hines and Weems. Still they fought in the hardest way, they pushed Real to their limits and obliged them to try out the taste of defeat for first time. The reality is that when Real scores less than 80 points and finds opponents that press a lot and play hard, Madrid becomes more vulnerable of losing their rhythm, faces a lot of difficulties and sometimes (depends of the strength of the opponent) they lose. However, it was a fact that Real Madrid had only 10 assists, a number that shows how good was the defense of CSKA especially in the 1st half.
Thumbs up for Malaga!!
The team from Andalusia lost in Barcelona but despite losing they show great quality and a very improved team in contrast to the team that we remember from the regular season. Despite playing without Toolson and Vasquez they were very close to gain their third straight win in the Top 16 and their second win in Barcelona after the one in Liga Endesa. Balanced offense, transition game, athleticism, experience, in all these aspects Unicaja plays at its highest of potential right now and at this turn of the Top 16 they are a tough opponent for every team and a real contender to be in the top four teams of the group.
40 3pts shots!!!!
The unbelievable high number of point shots shot by Panathinaikos team in the game against Fenerbahce Ulker is all but usual. The numbers are totally different from previous Top16 games, as Fenerbahce in the first three games allowed 87 points per average and against Panathinaikos this number decreased to 72 points. The opponents of Fenerbahce in the second round had an average of 40 2pt attempts and 24 3pt attempts. Moreover Panathinaikos in the first three games shot 62 three pointers and in 40 minutes in Istanbul shot 40. Instead of using the pick and roll with Lasme who had only 5 points, Panathinaikos moved the ball outside the three points arc. Even though most of the times the ball movement was excellent, shooting from outside its always a risk. This time the risk didn’t pay off for the Greens and the first defeat in the second round is a fact
Resurrection of Turkish teams
The results of Turkish teams till last week in the second round were 0 wins and 9 defeats. Although in this 4th week finally came the nemesis. All Turkish teams won and take one first step to get closer in fulfilling their goals. In our opinion even though the wins came, the performance of all teams was not improved in a convincing way and still they are a lot of things to be done in order the three teams to persuade the basketball world of their quality to be in Final Four or even in the Top eight teams.Talent is there, quality coaching is there, big budgets also, but the results are still not guaranteed. Only time will tell…
Unbeaten!!
Only two teams in both groups still remain unbeaten after the first four weeks. Barcelona and Maccabi Tel Aviv. The Israelis played another very impressive all around game against the heroes of last week Partizan. They almost had a 30 point advantage in the first half and in the second they played much more relaxed. Real tests are coming in the next three weeks during which they will have to visit Moscow and Madrid to face the other top teams of the group. Barcelona got a very difficult win against domestic rivals Unicaja Malaga and after the road wins they had against Fenerbahce and Olympiakos, they seem to be the most impressive team till know in Euroleague’s Top16 after the reactivation of Oleson and Lorbek from their injuries. Big game is also coming for the
Catalans next week in Athens against always tough Panathinaikos.
The hero of Krasnodar!!
Krunoslav Simon is the go to guy definitely in this Euroleague season!!! How many big shots he made?? How many crucial wins he gave to his team?? The answer is definitely that he is one of the main factor for the impressive presence of Lokomotiv Kuban in the Top 16. He made a winning basket against Panathinaikos in Greece in the 1st round, he killed also Laboral Kutxa in Krasnodar with a big three point shot in the last 5 seconds and he had a complete performance in the fourth week against Zalgiris Kaunas. He also had an excellent game with 21 points (shooting 8/11 field goals) contributing also 6 rebound and also 8 assists.A really perfect game for him and the main reason of the comeback of the Russian team in the game against Zalgiris.
Disappointment…
There are very few words to describe the terrible performance of Laboral Kutxa in the game against Olympiakos. No defence, no plan to stop the penetrations of Spanoulis and the passing game of Olympiakos. One of the easiest wins of Olympiakos this season, without even playing the second half. For sure the biggest part of responsibilities are those of the coach. Scariolo does not seem to inspire the team at all, he had Hodge out of rotation for 20 days and in this game he was not only back in the rotation, but he played almost 20 minutes. At this moment Baskonia seems to be the weakest team in the group, a big disappointment for the team of Espil, Bennett, Stombergas, Scola, Macijauskas, Calderon, Splitter, Prigioni and Nocioni.
BUZZER BEATER!!!!
There are no words to describe the winning basket of Zoran Planinic in the game against Milano.It will be one of the Euroleague’s classics after some years…