By Panos Katsiroumpas/ info@eurohoops.net
The maestro showed up!
After some time, Thomas Heurtel played very well and showed what he can offer when he’s in good condition. Both in terms of creation and execution, he was one of his team’s best players and provided solutions whenever those were needed. He was able to control the rhythm exceptionally well and he executed in the gaps of Olympiacos’s defense. He finished the game with 18 points and 5 assists.
Improvement in defense
It’s something we have to give credit to the Turkish team for. For quite a long period of time in the season Efes had one of the worst defenses and one that was pretty bad in terms of collaborations. In the last 4 or 5 games they’ve shown vast improvement in this department and credit has to be given to certain players that stats often don’t do justice to. In previous games it was Balbay while in this one Osman did an excellent job too, together with the consistently good Honeycutt.
Lonely
This is how Olympiacos’s offense can be characterized. Heavy reliance on running the plays through Spanloulis, and Printezis was quite alone in execution for a long time. Lojeski’s absence and Green’s injury dramatically decreased Olympiacos’s options, and as a result they were poor offensively for a long period of the game.
Tests
The enforced absences brought about some tests by Olympiacos’s coaching staff and some of them were rather interesting. First of all, we saw Papapetrou playing in the ‘3’ position and feeling pretty good, while we also saw line-ups with three forwards (Papanikolaou, Papapetrou, Printezis or Agravanis) in positions 2-3-4. Some of these provided solutions but those were transient and didn’t last very long in the game.
Fiery trio
The trio of Panathinaikos’s guards consisting of Calathes, Pappas and James did amazing work in the defensive part. There were points in the game when CSKA suffered in order to create the conditions for a good shot. Teodosic and De Colo had a rough go of it and the two of them had more turnovers than they did assists, something that hasn’t happened before this year.
The smart risks
To be able to be aggressive in switching defenses as well, Panathinaikos took some risks. In order not to give any room to Teodosic and De Colo, they risked some passes deep in the paint which Augustine took advantage of, while they gave up some open shots to Vorontsevich. The Russian forward executed 15 shots in total, a number that is his personal record. The Greens gave up points to certain players but weren’t hurt by CSKA’s real stars.
Mike James
The player who, after a certain point, monopolized Panathinaikos’s attacks and had a really big game. He mercilessly ruptured CSKA’s defense, which he threw off balance to a great extent, and with the right passes he created the conditions for open shots. It’s clear that this is the player who is going to get the ball at critical moments.
8-for-25
These were CSKA’s three-pointers in the game and this number was key for the outcome of the game. As we mentioned above, Panathinaikos risked shots from the ‘4’ position, and as a result Vorontsevich shot 35% of the attempts from outside the 6.75 line. He was only 2-for-9 when throughout the year he was almost 50%, while CSKA in general shot with only 28%, when in most games they shoot with 45%. Panathinaikos’s defense sealed the deal.
Two outbreaks were enough
The game in Madrid was very slow, something that Fener sought to a great extent in order to keep up with the score. They might’ve managed for about thirty minutes, but it wasn’t enough to give them the win. Two outbreaks from Real, one at the start of the game and one in the middle and end of the third quarter, decided the outcome. The home team was able to run a little and execute quickly before the defense had enough time to prepare. The points that Real got in these intervals were decisive in the final outcome of the game.
The Dioscuri
They were the ones responsible for the home team’s two outbreaks. Llull made the start scoring two fast three-pointers at the outset, while in the second half, Rudy helped him out as well, perhaps in one of his best games as of late. The two of them opened up the court and executed directly at every opportunity. They had 6-for-12 three-pointers when everyone else had 2-for-11.
Dependence
No matter how great a player Bogdanovic is, at some point every defense is going to find a way to stop him. With Sloukas and Datome out injured, Fenerbahce depends almost exclusively – both in terms of creation as well as execution – on the Serb. Perhaps they are forced to approach things this way since neither Udoh nor Vesely can consistently threaten or create from the post. In any case, Fener’s game looks one-dimensional and coach Obradovic is called to solve some puzzles before they go any further.
Only five
With all this going on in the game in Madrid, we saw something that doesn’t happen too often in modern basketball and is worth mentioning. Fener’s rotation included just 8 players, while five guys played from 30 to 36 minutes. This certainly doesn’t help line-ups to be flexible or to stay energetic either. It makes sense that absences are important, but Fenerbahce is not the only team that’s been called to deal with these kinds of situations throughout the season.