By Panos Katsiroubas/ info@eurohoops.net
The magnifying Glass focuses its attention on all the European courts of Turkish Airlines Euroleague and each week it will choose to examine through its basketball lens some of the games that stole the show in the top competition!
Scoring the same – without De Colo or Freeland!
One big showdown of Top 16 Round 3 took place in the Russian capital, where CSKA Moscow hosted FC Barcelona Lassa. The home team, despite the absence of Nando De Colo and Joel Freeland, played some impressive basketball in yet another imposing win. The starting lineup was a surprise on the part of CSKA head coach Dimitrios Itoudis, who annointed Dmitry Kulagin and Ivan Lazarev starters, with the latter making life hard for Ante Tomic. From the start, CSKA’s defense tried to break off Barcelona’s connection to the paint even if that meant risking shots from the wings. This kind of defense gave away some open looks, mostly for shots from the weak side. Nonetheless, it kept Tomic’s output down to zero, as his playing time was rather short in the first half. Meanwhile, CSKA’s offense ran an excellent variety of offensive plays with really good moves and spacing in the gaps of the defense. The hosts took a 17-9 lead, after which a bombardment of three-pointers followed from both teams. Both finished the first quarter with impressive 6-for-7 accuracy from the 6.75-meter arc! Itoudis’s players kept circulating the ball well, with extra passes from the big men following pick-and-rolls leading to open shots from the wings that Cory Higgins, especially, did an excellent job of converting.
Overall, CSKA had impressive numbers against Barcelona, making 20 of 32 shots overall and 9 of 13 three-pointers, while dominating the boards with 6 offensive rebounds – all in the first half. Barca scored mostly through Juan Carlos Navarro in the first half, but the start of the second was the visitors’ best stretch in terms of tactics, as they took advantage of Tomic and Samardo Samuels playing together with continuous high-lows for points inside the paint. They also read the mismatches among the guards, since CSKA was playing with short line-ups and Stratos Perperoglou usually had a height advantage in the post. The difference even dropped to 3 points, despite CSKA’s big men continuing to make extra passes. Kyle Hines and Andrey Vorontsevich shared 7 assists, a number that shows how well they read the backups on the pick-and-roll plays, passing out to the perimeter. The backcourt players used their speed in isolation, either punishing the switches – with Milos Teodosic putting down 4 three-pointers – or by driving to the basket, with Higgins as the main exponent. Navarro’s ejection for a second technical foul essentially threw Barcelona’s offensive game off rhythm, and soon the visitors found themselves 19 points behind, 78-59, without being able to threaten after that.
First-place comeback!
Group E’s two undefeated teams starred in an epic playoff-flavored game in Istanbul! Fenerbahce Istanbul got the win in the last quarter with an amazing comeback against a great Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar. The team from Krasnodar played great defense for 30 minutes, but in the last quarter Fenerbahce overturned the situation with the talent and the short lineup that coach Zeljko Obradovic chose. With Victor Claver as their axis, the visitors attacked hard, with the Spanish forward setting up screens on the guards repeatedly and creating room for open shots with a pop-out move along the perimeter. He finished the game with 21 points after making 5 of 5 three-pointers! Meanwhile, Lokomotiv made it hard for Fenerbahce to unlock its offense by switching defenses and rotating very well. On almost every attack, Fenerbahce created mismatches, especially in the post, but the defense was so good that the ball couldn’t get there easily. Even when it did, there was immediate help and good responses in individual defense. Fenerbahce’s comeback started with the shortening of the lineup by placing Luigi Datome at power forward.
In this way, the hosts got better spacing and got some good looks for the Italian forward, who proved a threat from mid-range distance. Fener also got great shots – produced from his talent and tenacity – from Bogdan Bogdanovic, while Jan Vesely’s contribution grew as he took advantage of offensive mismatches. It all came together in the fourth quarter: Datome put the pieces together for 12 points, with Bogdanovic and Vesely adding 9 each, with the Serbian shooting guard scoring off one-on-one plays and the Czech center using his advantages in height and quickness to great effect. The result was that trio scoring 30 of the 34 fourth-quarter points for Fenerbahce that largely decided the game. Also important, of course, was Fenerbahce’s great individual and team defense on Lokomotiv’s leader, Malcolm Delaney, who was held to just 2 field goals. Overall, it was an amazing game with a high tempo and a very hard attitude from both teams.
Fiery trio led Khimki to victory
In a rather anarchic game, with both teams relying a lot on talent and instinct, Khimki Moscow Region managed to get a great win against Laboral Kutxa Vitoria Gasteiz. The main reason that the home team prevailed was that their two stars, Alexey Shved and Tyrese Rice, had good days, while James Augustine was excellent both screening and finishing on pick-and-rolls. The two guards monopolized the attacks but also read the game well, producing a total of 18 assists. They also combined for 31 shots, a number that shows the difficulty Khimki had with involving more players in their offense. Rice did a great job with the pick-and-roll and his connections with Augustine, especially through the middle of the lane, with Laboral’s defense lacking the necessary depth to intercept these kinds of attacks. Aside from the pick-and-roll, Rice also made good decisions with the kick-out passes when he chose to drive to the paint.
In this way, he created several of Shved’s open shots, the latter finishing the game with 24 points. Laboral had a problem with their defensive treatment of the pick-and-roll and made some bad choices and many turnovers in transition offense. Likewise, the visitors couldn’t find the target with many of their shots either from the perimeter after moving the the ball, or inside the paint. Darius Adams and Fabien Causeur – the best creators on Laboral – had off-nights, with poor decisions and many turnovers. The total number of 19 turnovers made any thought of winning impossible for coach Velimir Perasovic’s players. Furthermore, Ioannis Bourousis didn’t help out much as he had his worst game this season, with only 3 points, but also bad positioning in defense opposite Augustine.
Experience, uniformity and rebounds for Efes
Anadolu Efes Istanbul won the local derby against Darussafaka Dogus Istanbul in a clear victory of the team with the most quality but also the most experience at this level. Efes functioned excellently on offense, distributing the ball well throughout the full width of the court, running and scoring in transition at every opportunity, and utilizing their entire roster and their strongest features. The hosts worked hard in the area of collaborations and got the ball in the paint often, striking on the mismatches that Darussafaka’s defense allowed with characteristic ease because of switches and slow defensive reactions. An important role was played by the numerous second-chance points of Efes coach Dusan Ivkovic’s team, which completely dominated in rebounds, with a 48-29 overall advantage and 14-3 on the offensive glass, resulting in 11 additional possessions. Thomas Heurtel and Jayson Granger did a terrific job in dishing 18 assists when Darussafaka had just 13 total.
The aspect of uniformity was the most problematic in Darussafaka’s game. The visitors couldn’t produce any good collaborations on the court and they were limited to individual efforts and a lot of shots from the perimeter; shots that came mostly after a simple screen on the ball, with Scottie Wilbekin and Ender Arslan undertaking most of those attempts. Overall, despite good percentages on those outside shots, Darussafaka was simply confined to short runs that dropped the deficit from double-digits to single-digits, but without ever being able to threaten in any substantial way. Its inability to make defensive stops consecutively meant that Darussafaka could not alter the rhythm of the game. For Efes, the win was essential to stay close to the top spots in the standings, while Darussafaka seems to be finding it very difficult to achieve any kind of breakthrough in the Top 16.