By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net/ Twitter.com/AStroggylakis
With 53 seconds left in last night’s (21/4) match between Olympiacos and Anadolu Efes in Piraeus, the score was tied 71 – 71. The Turkish team had erased 8-point deficit in the mid of the fourth quarter but their task of leaving Piraeus with at least one win in their pockets wasn’t completed yet.
When Jayson Granger’s attempt to drive to the hoop was thwarted by a perhaps excessive defensive help from the Reds, he timely noticed Alex Kirk standing wide open 6 meters far from the basket and sent him the ball. The latter hit the jumper that ultimately became the game-winner, since his opponents didn’t score any more points in the 49 seconds remaining.
“I just did my job, you know,” Kirk told Eurohoops. “It was a good shot yes, but I was wide open because of my teammates. Olympiacos tried to protect the rim from their lay-up attempts, they saw me, passed the ball and just did what I should’ve done. My job, my role.”
The significance of Kirk’s shot goes beyond the one of a simple game-winner, even if that decides a crucial postseason battle. If defeated, his team would fall to the 0 – 2, a pretty much disheartening situation from which no team has ever managed to escape and achieve a full turnaround.
Furthermore, with his bucket, the American big guy granted Efes something that hasn’t ever been done before in the history of the franchise: A road victory in the EuroLeague playoffs.
When asked if that was one of the most important baskets in his career, Kirk admitted that this is the case indeed. “Well professionally yes. It’s my first experience in the EuroLeague and we are in the playoffs. This match meant a lot. So can’t deny that it was a big basket. But I’m more happy with the win than the fact that I was the one who hit the game-winner.”
(Alex Kirk celebrates with teammate Thomas Heurtel)
The 25-year-old center and his squad struggled big-time in Game 1, where Olympiacos got a comfortable 87 – 72 victory. They had been routed in 47 – 31 in rebounds with their opponents collecting 18 on offense. They had suffered by the Reds’ suffocating defensive physicality and effective strategy, despite being widely regarded as the most athletic team in the league.
Furthermore, their inability to make stops banned them from the last resort from producing in transition, an area where they usually thrive.
“Indeed, we lost easily in Game 1”, said Kirk. “But we adjusted properly. We came out more aggressive and it showed. They beat us on the boards tonight too (38 – 37) but the margin wasn’t big enough to make the difference it made on Tuesday.”
There’s a pattern in EuroLeague history of teams “breaking” home court mostly in Game 2 rather than Game 1. Just during this season’s playoffs, David Blatt’s Darussafaka Dogus also stole the advantage from Real Madrid with a win in Spain for the 1 – 1, almost one hour after Efes‘ triumph in Piraeus.
And it pretty much makes sense. If a squad learns from its mistakes and manages to put this knowledge into action on the floor in such a short time-frame, then it can bring enough new elements in its game take its opponents them by surprise. Especially if the latter have let their guard down and become complacent after a Game 1 victory.
“Obviously we didn’t have time to change much between those two games. But we were able to watch the film and see what we did wrong in order to fix it. So we did a couple of small things differently. Small changes, yes, that played a big part on the whole picture.”
The victory of Anadolu Efes in Piraeus is now on the books. But it might be easily forgotten, if Anadolu Efes doesn’t finish the job in Istanbul, in front of its fans in “Abdi Ipekci”.
“I know that the crowd is going to be unbelievable in the games in Istanbul,” hopes Alex Kirk. “We should come out with the proper aggressiveness and we hope that we’ll shoot the ball a little better since we’ll be at home. Just continue to do what we did tonight (21/4), protecting the backboard and things will happen.”