By Panos Katsiroybas/ 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!
Khimki comfortable: Barcelona unrecognizable
In a game of great interest in terms of the Group F standings, like the one between Khimki Moscow Region and FC Barcelona Lassa on Thursday, the visitors were unrecognizable just one week after playing so well against Olympiacos Piraeus. They were soft in the paint, slow on offense, with many turnovers and, in general, with no zing or rhythm throughout almost the entire game. Khimki’s domination was twofold. First of all, in yet another game, the central pick-and-roll was the flagship of their offensive game and the main way through which Rimas Kurtinaitis’s team scored.
Good creativity by Tyrese Rice and Alexey Shved punished the slow defensive reactions of Barcelona’s big men, as well as the very slow help from the wings that essentially never materialized to interrupt Khimki. As a result, there were continually open lanes to Barcelona’s basket that Khimki’s big men exploited on dives to the basket or its guards just dribbled their way there. James Augustine and Paul Davis easily scored 13 points each even though they also missed some rather easy baskets.
Joey Dorsey, Barcelona’s best defender in stopping the pick-and-roll, was on the court for just 13 minutes, which cost the visitors defensively. In addition, after being absent the three previous games, Khimki’s defense did a great job. From allowing 97 points on average to Olympiacos, Real Madrid and CSKA Moscow, Khimki now held Barcelona to 29 in the first half and 61 total. Its defense clearly applied much greater pressure, with hands being thrown up on every play. This resulted in 9 steals, many of which led to easy points. The home team scored in transition at every opportunity, even after baskets by Barcelona, whose defense was slow getting back and struggled with concentration.
Khimki scored 46 of its 75 points inside the paint, a figure that demonstrates excellent teamwork. Barcelona, which had beaten Khimki by 17 points at home, at least maintained the upper hand in case of a tie, mostly thanks to Justin Doellman‘s shots when the combined presence of Davis and Augustine for Khimki meant one of them had to chase him on the perimeter. Samardo Samuels also provided help with his effective game in the post in the fourth quarter. The victory let Khimki move up to fourth place, while Barcelona for the first time in memory is out of playoff position this late in a Top 16.
First-place win for CSKA Moscow
In a great game at the Barclaycard Center, scene of the Final Four last season, Real Madrid and CSKA Moscow staged a huge battle, with the visitors appearing better and conquering a win that gives them real hope for securing the group’s top spot. Even though the game had a high score line, we can say that the main reason Dimtrios Itoudis’s team prevailed was the good, even excellent, defense of the Russian team for most of the game. This makes absolute sense when we consider that Madrid took the game to almost 85 possessions. CSKA’s defense was excellent in the first two quarters, except at the start of the game. That’s when the home team, with Gustavo Ayon using the pick-and-roll, got the ball inside with ease and scored with frequency. The Mexican center scored 6 points, had 2 offensive rebounds and made a total of 7 shot attempts in the game’s first 5 minutes.
This picture changed when Kyle Hines entered for CSKA and Victor Khryapa played power forward in a shorter lineup. CSKA’s defense became faster, switched whenever necessary, helped quickly when Madrid’s big men dove to the basket, and forced Madrid into many long-range shots late in the shot clock. Indeed, at halftime, Madrid had taken the same number of two- and three-point attempts making just 4 of 18 from long range. Hines’s help on offense was also important. With his excellent screens along the wings and his fast cuts inside, he anticipated whenever Madrid’s defense was a step slow and scored 10 fast points in the second quarter, providing a small but important lead for his team. At every opportunity, the American center scored in transition, too.
In the second half, after Madrid’s initial outbreak, CSKA’s dominance was total. As long as Pablo Laso’s team got the ball inside under good conditions, they scored points and found offensive rhythm. From the middle of the third quarter onward, however, CSKA played amazingly in offense and essentially ran away with the game. This was due to a combination of amazing ball circulation, very good movement without it, taking advantage of gaps in defense, forceful screens and an excellent passing game until finding the best option.
CSKA scored 54 points in the second half (32 of them in the fourth quarter) on 50% three-point shooting, while Madrid resorted to somewhat forced choices, with a lot of shots from the perimeter and low percentages. Overall, the visitors looked like they were the team with the best plan, the most thoughtful basketball and the best choices at both ends of the court. Eight players from CSKA scored more than 7 points, which indicates how well Itoudis took advantage of the depth and versatility on his roster.
Lokomotiv Kuban keep making an impression
We don’t know where to start in regards to the game in Istanbul. It’s definitely worth taking our hats off to coach Georgios Bartzokas for one more amazing show by Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar, but on the other hand, we cannot overlook Anadolu Efes Istanbul’s poor performance in yet another game. Lokomotiv’s plan was to try and disarm Thomas Heurtel and his assists, risking some open looks for other shooters and even open shots that he could find.
This worked, because even though the French guard scored 17 points, he couldn’t get into a rhythm, creatively, at any point in the game. And if Heurtel can’t get into a rhythm creatively, then it gets very hard for Efes in general to find open shots. This was the first game this year that Heurtel had more turnovers, 5, than assists, 3. This was certainly the most important factor for Efes behind held to 61 points, its worst offensive performance of the season, on its home court.
On the other side, the way that Lokomotiv is structured makes it the most flexible team in the Euroleague. With its trio of big men – Anthony Randolph, Chris Singleton, and Victor Claver – they can spread out their offense in length and width, open up the spacing and strike at teams whose strongest point is not their defense. Efes is one of those teams. In this game, too, the hosts faced big problems with their defense along the perimeter, where Malcolm Delaney attacked his opponents to the tune of 19 points and 6 assists. Randolph and Claver also provided significant assistance on both ends of the court. Especially the Spaniard was great when Efes tried to get back in the game, scoring all of his 14 points in the second half. Outside of scoring, both greatly helped their team play excellent switching defense in yet another game.
Only in a very few instances could Efes take advantage of the mismatches that were created on almost every play. Dontaye Draper and Delaney played great defense and denied passes intended for Efes’s centers, fronting their opponents several times and, as a result, stealing several balls. As the game wore on, Efes’s choices got worse. The home team finished the game with 23-for-58 field-goal shooting and just 44% accuracy in free throws. And despite having more possessions, Efes suffered 17 turnovers and dished just 12 assists. These figures demonstrate the clear victory of Lokomotiv’s defense against Efes’s offense.
After this result, the home team is now one step away from the cliff of disqualification, still two wins away from the fourth and final playoff spot with five games to go. But it’s more like three wins away because Efes would lose a head-to-head tie-break with the current fourth-place team, Crvena Zvezda Telekom Belgrade. Lokomotiv, meanwhile, could even take over Group E’s top spot when it hosts Fenerbahce Istanbul next week.
They survived the first of the ‘do or die’ games
After many years, Olympiacos found themselves early with their backs against the wall in the Top 16. The game against Laboral Kutxa Vitoria Gasteiz was a “final” and this had a positive effect on the players of the home team who, after a balanced start to the game, imposed their law, with the defense once again sparking the Reds’ fastbreak. In the game’s opening minutes, Velimir Perasovic‘s players dealt with the defensive pressure from Olympiacos through good positioning. They placed players close to the ball in order to have easy passes and in this way enjoyed functional movement and produced several open shots.
The fact that they weren’t on target was one of the two reasons that Olympiacos stayed close then. The other reason was the excellent connection between Vassilis Spanoulis and Georgios Printezis, who had an advantage in the post over Davis Bertans and took advantage of it. He got some passes in static attacks to go one-on-one and made smart moves without the ball, receiving passes from Spanoulis for ready-made baskets. He scored 13 points in the first quarter and gave his team the lead. Throughout the entire game, Laboral had serious problems in dealing with the pick-and-roll defensively. And in the second quarter, the absolute outbreak came. With the score tied 25-25, the home team had an impressive 16-0 run over 3 minutes that smothered their opponents, and showed what Olympiacos can do when its defense functions properly. The hosts did this by pressing relentlessly on the ball, pushing up their defense and setting traps.
Laboral committed 6 turnovers in 3 minutes, attempted only 2 shots, which both missed their target, and conceded 10 of those 16 points in transition. From that point on, half the job was done and the home team only had to maintain its lead. Overall, Olympiacos circulated the ball very well, Spanoulis passed incredibly out of pick-and-rolls and continuously found the best option available. For the first time this season, Olympiacos attempted almost four times as many two-pointers as three-pointers, when so far the ratio had been fewer than 2-to-1. At every opportunity, Olympiacos pierced Laboral’s defense and found great offensive options. In the second half, with his team 20 points behind (61-41), Perasovic tried a line-up with Darius Adams and Mike James on the court at the same time. The two of them penetrated through the offensive hedge-outs of Olympiacos’s defense and, with good passes, created open shots.
Ioannis Bourousis was, once more, amazing, making 8 of 8 two-pointers and helping close the gap to 8 points. This was a wake-up call for the home team, and the defensive sensor essentially went back into function, forcing Laboral to make hasty choices again. On attack, Olympiacos circulated the ball patiently against Laboral’s zone pressure, looking for mismatches, and eventually scoring inside as its big men finished well the good creations of their teammates, securing a much-needed win for the hosts.