By Panos Katsiroubas/ info@eurohoops.net
The Magnifying Glass focuses its attention on all the courts of Turkish Airlines Euroleague and each week examines through its basketball lens some of the games that stole the show in Europe’s top competition!
CSKA Moscow’s latest offensive show
The best offense in the Turkish Airlines Euroleague struck again and added yet another offensively complete game to the many they have already produced in the competition. CSKA Moscow scored 108 points against Khimki Moscow Region and with such an offensive output it was impossible for them not to win, in a game where the individual talent of the players prevailed first and tactics second. If there is something that is striking, it’s the way CSKA reacted to the very mediocre first half of their two big stars, Milos Teodosic and Nando De Colo.
Dimitrios Itoudis’s players found solutions from the supporting cast, with Nikita Kurbanov being – in yet another game – amazing on defense and offense. He effectively limited Alexey Shved in the opening 10 minutes, playing some amazing defense, while on offense he scored at every opportunity, whether with open shots from the perimeter after good ball circulation, in transition or in the post against Khimki’s smaller forwards when Tyler Honeycutt wasn’t on the court. Victor Khryapa and Aaron Jackson also had a very good performances, the first finishing with a double-double of 10 points and 11 rebounds.
Khimki had problems facing CSKA’s defense, especially when Kurbanov and Jackson played together, and couldn’t circulate the ball very well. This could be seen especially in the opening minutes, when CSKA quickly reached an 18-6 lead. After 20 minutes, CSKA had scored 53 points, but Teodosic and De Colo combined for just 12 points and 5 assists for one of their least productive halves this season.
Of course, what the duo of De Colo and Teodosic didn’t do in the first half, they did in the second. With Kyle Hines’s very good screens on the ball, they found the room and the time they needed. They took advantage of all the gaps in defense and essentially killed off Khimki with several shots on target from the perimeter. In the second half, they scored 33 points and dished 6 assists between them. Kurbanov kept doing a great job on offense in the post.
On defense, Itoudis’s players took some risks that, judging from the overall picture, turned out to be successful. They targeted Shved in order to throw him off rhythm, placing Kurbanov on him. They bothered the pick-and-roll passes to James Augustine by providing help from the wings. With this defense they risked long-range shots from Khimki’s small forwards, mainly Honeycutt and Zoran Dragic, but they made only 2 of 11 three-point attempts. Augustine didn’t receive a lot of passes and remained relatively low in his scoring. It was an important win of talent, mostly, with some bits of good tactics by Itoudis’s team that firmly retains its share of the Group F lead.
A qualification win for Panathinaikos
A great game took place in Athens with Panathinaikos Athens hosting Fenerbahce Istanbul, who were coming into the game undefeated. After a very exciting game, two coaches setting up a game of chess, the home team managed to get a very important win that opens wide the qualification door. This win can be attributed, to a large extent, to the defense that Aleksandar Djordjevic’s players executed almost throughout the entire game.
If we exclude the first quarter, in which Luigi Datome did a great job for Fenerbahce, the defense won almost all the battles. The Italian forward was the player who made things difficult for the Panathinaikos defense with screens that he received on the wings but also back screens that he set, allowing his big men to cut towards the basket while he moved towards the perimeter, where the defense got tangled up and gave him the room he needed to score. Fenerbahce scored 20 points in the game’s first 10 minutes, while in the next 28 – that is to say, until the 38th minute – they scored only 44.
The pressure exerted by the Panathinaikos defense was grueling, as the hosts managed to break up screens very frequently, making it hard for Fenerbahce to circulate the ball. The only clear risk that Panathinaikos took was to let big men Jan Vesely and Ekpe Udoh take mid-range shots following pick-and-rolls. They were vindicated, as Udoh scored only one such shot from the five he attempted, while Vesely hesitated to shoot.
Zeljko Obradovic’s players were unable to run at all against the excellent defensive transition of Panathinaikos, which forced several turnovers that led to easy points. In this way, the home team produced an 11-0 run to take over the lead at 31-28. Fenerbahce scored mostly through Bobby Dixon’s shot out of the isolation game, but also on perimeter shots that were nonetheless well defended. It was telling that, in many instances, Udoh was forced to put the ball on the floor from the perimeter, trying to strike at the slower Panathinaikos big men. On the other end, Fenerbahce’s defense did a good enough job against Miroslav Raduljica, limiting his effect in the pick-and-roll and his game in the post.
In the second half, Panathinaikos had better collaborations in its set offense. The Greens score off some pick-and-rolls, had good off-ball screens and circulated the ball well for open shots. The home team secured a lead that reached 8 points, with Fenerbahce making a final effort in the last minutes and closing down the gap down to a point. That’s when Dimitris Diamantidis’s class spoke, as he read the game as very few other can, passing a ready-made basket to Elliot Williams, who had cut inside from the baseline. Panathinaikos’s captain had 7 assists on yet another great night, while Williams made an excellent debut, with 14 points and 2 rebounds.
Crvena Zvezda keeps pulling off miracles
Crvena Zvezda Telekom Belgrade truly deserves respect for everything the team has achieved. Dejan Radonjic had two main axes in his team’s offensive game, but they also came up with other solutions whenever necessary in Friday’s home win against Anadolu Efes Istanbul. The first axis was scoring in transition at every opportunity, and in this aspect the hosts were excellent. They scored several points in surprise attacks after defensive rebounds and took great advantage of attacks lasting between 8 and 16 seconds. The second axis was Zvezda’s tried and tested pick-and-roll with Maik Zirbes as the receiver. Although Zirbes didn’t always get the pass, what did work always was the good reading by Zvezda’s guards of all the defenses they came up against.
They successfully targeted the slow feet of Efes guards Thomas Heurtel and Jon Diebler, and in the end, unsung perimeter players Marko Guduric, Namanja Dangubic and Branko Lazic scored a total of 37 points, more than twice as many as their collective averages this season. The first two struck with drives to the basket, while Lazic executed at every opportunity, mostly as a shooter from the weak side.
Efes relied on Heurtel’s pick-and-rolls from the top or along the wings, which managed to set up several open shots. But if we exclude the first quarter, the visitors did not threaten from inside the paint. Once again, this forced Dusan Ivkovic to deploy a line up with Derrick Brown at ‘4’ and Dario Saric at ‘5’. The Croatian forward fought as hard as he could on defense, trying to deny the passes inside the paint for Zirbes, while on offense too he struck with pop-out moves, beating his opponent with speed. Despite his earnest efforts, Efes’s defense was well short of the circumstances. The 91 points conceded is a figure that speaks for itself, and if it wants to qualify, that’s the first thing that Efes has to improve.
Zvezda, playing proper basketball, affording freedoms to their talented players but also with clear directions in the game, manages to not only remain on the qualification path, but put itself a step closer to the playoffs. Most importantly, this team is playing really good basketball at the right time.
Barcelona dominates Olympiacos
One of the best showdowns of Top 16 Round 8 saw host FC Barcelona Lassa defeating Olympiacos Piraeus with great ease. The scale of the win, 16 points, definitely makes a big impression, as it gives Barcelona a tie-break advantage. After the first 8 minutes, the home team dominated to the point of leading by almost 30 points at one moment.
The start of the game saw Vassilis Spanoulis going through the Barcelona defense after every screen and Georgios Printezis being excellent in offense. But it was not an indication of what was to follow. The big change in the game was made by Joey Dorsey, who literally dominated on both defense and offense. He could play switching defenses with great success, but mostly protected the rim against Olympiacos’s incursions there.
On every drive by the visitors, he created difficulties, made important blocks, was excellent in back-ups and spoiled his opponents’ frame of mind and concentration. On offense, Barcelona struck at every mismatch. We saw Tomas Satoransky posting up Spanoulis and Stratos Perperoglou doing the same to D. J. Strawberry and Ioannis Papapetrou, but also beating Printezis with shots from the perimeter whenever he came up against him. Dorsey and Samardo Samuels also did a great job scoring inside and winning many battles. They covered for the limited contribution of Ante Tomic by combining for 23 points, 12 rebounds, 4 steals, 3 assists and 2 blocks.
Especially in the second half, the home team had some amazing plays, with a lot of screens and movement, and they punished the Olympiacos defense – which, after some time, appeared quite soft – especially with good shots from the perimeter. Juan Carlos Navarro had a great game after some time, while Perperoglou punished his former club at every opportunity. The game lost its interest midway through the third quarter with the gap reaching 30 points, although there was still the issue of the point difference. Daniel Hackett was the only player who, from that point onwards, tried to save his team’s bad image, scoring from the perimeter or driving to the basket.
After the earlyminutes, Olympiacos couldn’t get much out of either Spanoulis or Printezis. The visitors’ transition offense, which offers several points to Giannis Sfairopoulos’s team in every game, also failed. If, however, we could choose a player who defined the flow of the game, we would pick – without a second thought – Dorsey.