By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
Turkish Airlines EuroLeague with a hand from Synergy Sports Technology presents the Round 26 Stats Review focusing on Zalgiris Kaunas’ playoffs push. Not too long ago, Sarunas Jasikevicius’ was last in the standings but is currently looking into the top eight one win away from the clinching spots.
Per EuroLeague: “With a sterling perimeter performance, shooting 10-for-20 from beyond the arc, Zalgiris continued its rapid rise up the standings in that 105-97 overtime win against Milan. In a trend that started with a Round 16 victory over Bayern Munich, which snapped a nine-game losing streak, Sarunas Jasikevicius’s charges have found a consistency from the perimeter that had eluded them through the first half of the season. Sitting in last place at the end of Round 15, Zalgiris has risen all the way to 10th on the heels of dramatically improved three-point accuracy. Over the first 15 games of the season, Zalgiris shooters scored only 0.88 points per catch-and-shoot three-point attempt within the team’s half-court offense. They have scored 1.30 points per attempt since. That is roughly the difference between ranking dead last by a huge margin and ranking just a shade below Anadolu Efes Istanbul’s current record pace.
Perhaps the most interesting element of Zalgiris’ rise is that there were signs early on that this team was capable of far more than its record reflected. Many of the losses during the extended skid were by one or two possessions. At the end of that streak, when Zalgiris sat 3-12 and was alone at the bottom of the standings, it had still amassed one of the season’s 10 best point differentials. Obviously, Zalgiris was due for a turnaround in the win column. Digging even deeper, Zalgiris had been scoring 0.97 points per pull-up jump shot in half-court situations through Round 15, a sign that such a turnaround on the perimeter was possible.
To understand why that is relevant requires some background on the frequency and degree of difficulty of different types of perimeter shots. All EuroLeague teams get between 12% and 25% of their shots within half-court offenses on dribble-jumpers. Falling in the middle of the pack in terms its volume of jump shots, beyond or inside the arc, Zalgiris had scored 0.97 points per attempt, ranking third in the EuroLeague.”
Read the rest of the Round 26 Stats Review on EuroLeague.net.