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!
Khimki’s perfect game
In Moscow we had the Game of the Week in the Turkish Airlines Euroleague, with Khimki Moscow Region hosting Olympiacos Piraeus, in what was a “final” for both teams in regards to playoff qualification. The way the game unfolded couldn’t have been imagined even by the most optimistic of the Russian team’s fans. After the mid-point of the second quarter, Dusko Ivanovic’s team played amazing basketball, crushing the 2012 and 2013 European champions. Playing total basketball on the offensive half of the court, Khimki scored in every way possible against a defense that has troubled many teams. Of course, Olympiacos contributed to this fact by hardly changing its defensive plan despite not being able to stop their opponents. The tactic of Olympiacos’s big men hedging out against pick-and-rolls essentially backfired, since Khimki found solutions both inside the paint and from the perimeter. At the start of the game, both teams scored mainly through the pick-and-roll, with Khimki defending slightly closer to the basket and risking shots by certain Olympiacos players. Vassilis Spanoulis’s collaborations with Othello Hunter, as well as Georgios Printezis’s offensive contribution, kept the visitors close to the home team until the 15th minute.
On the other side, Peteri Koponen did a great job against the switching defenses, but the big breakout occurred when Tyrese Rice got back in the game. In three consecutive plays, the American guard perfectly broke up the hedge-outs, creating imbalance in the Olympiacos defense with his kick-out passes that, with one additional pass, resulted in open shots for Alexey Shved. From a two-point lead, Olympiacos suddenly found themselves 10 points behind. That’s where the home team got into an amazing offensive rhythm that it maintained until the end of the game. Olympiacos was hurt by its tactic of over-trapping and over-helping on players who have worse shooting percentages than Shved from the perimeter. Another consequence of its aggressive hedge-outs was Olympiacos big men wandered far from the inside and Khimki completely dominated the rebounds, with 44 versus Olympiacos’s 30, including 15 offensive rebounds, 11 in the first half.
Not much changed in the second half, with the home team playing the pick-and-roll wonderfully in two-on-two situations, with James Augustine scoring with ease with his good cuts inside and vital passes from Rice and Shved. The Olympiacos defense didn’t send any help from the sides and the gap grew easily. After a certain point, coach Giannis Sfairopoulos tried small line-ups and zone defenses, but with the rhythm Khimki had found, the situation was irreversible. In the end, Khimki got an important win, but in order for them to go through has to win in Madrid next week. Olympiacos is now looking for a miracle combination of results that will allow them to qualify for the playoffs.
They played like Barcelona
In the other game teams with 6-6 records in Group E, FC Barcelona Lassa – armed with very good defense – easily prevailed over Brose Baskets Bamberg, which played one of its worst games. For the home team, defense was the beginning, middle and end in this game. They kept Andrea Trinchieri’s team down to 57 points, 20 less than their average. The hosts dealt with the screens on the ball by using a lot of pressure, while their recoveries were fast, which resulted in Bamberg not being able to pass as we had seen in previous games. Joey Dorsey’s presence was important defensively, as he covered the gaps quickly and tried to deflect every shot that was attempted. The truth is that most of Bamberg’s players had a bad day as a whole: except for Bradley Wanamaker, no other player was able to rise to the occasion.
Another important thing for Barcelona was that, after some time, Ante Tomic had an excellent game, both in terms of scoring and passing. He scored from the post, and when the defense decided to double-team him, he passed well to teammates cutting to the basket. Overall, both Barcelona centers were good creatively following the pick-and-roll, with passes to the sides, following an introductory pass to the big man at the level of the free throw line. In general, Barcelona’s spacing was ideal and their offense was properly spread out, with players in the corners always ready to execute when the ball reached them. Five of Barcelona’s 15 assists came from Tomic and Dorsey. In the second half, Bamberg made some efforts to reduce the deficit, but as soon as the deficit dropped under 15 points, Barcelona responded with some good defenses and easy points on offense, especially from inside the paint. The final minutes were essentially a formality, with Barcelona getting a very important win that is almost half a qualification, since even with a defeat in Kaunas in the last game, it can only get disqualified through a specific combination of results. For Bamberg, things are now very difficult, but the great image that they presented is something that’s going to stay with us from this year’s Top 16.
Bertans’s miracle!
Anything you say about Laboral Kutxa Vitoria Gasteiz’s game against Real Madrid is not enough. An unbelievable thriller unfolded in a very high-quality game, perhaps the best in this year’s competition. And like all great thrillers, the game was decided by an unbelievable shot by Davis Bertans, one that definitively sent Laboral to the playoffs with home-court advantage and put Madrid on the edge of the cliff. If the finale was unbelievable, however, the game’s opening minutes didn’t presage what was going to transpire in the end. By playing great defense, Madrid completely trapped Laboral, who could barely score. The visitors were playing very hard, broke up all the screens, had their way in every play and forced Laboral into bad choices. The inappropriate line-up with which the home team started also contributed to this, with just one guard, Darius Adams, who wasn’t on a good day for the second game in a row. Laboral scored their first basket after almost 5 minutes and reached 11 points in the first quarter only with difficulty. The game started to change pace when Mike James and Giannis Bourousis stepped on the court.
James essentially used his explosiveness and the good screens he received to drive deep and created rifts in the Madrid defense. Once again, Bourousis was his team’s cornerstone, scoring in every way. He started out with pop-outs and shots from the perimeter and, as time went by, got closer and closer to the post. Madrid coach Pablo Laso mainly used man-to-man coverage on Bourousis, even though in the first game in Madrid he had even triple-teamed him. Bourousis took advantage of these circumstances and constantly scored in the post, especially in the second half, forcing his opponents to send help after a certain point. Madrid remained in control, mainly through the pick-and-roll and good circulation of the ball after the first pass, with their good spacing helping to set up open shots, in part because Laboral’s Adam Hanga risked playing as a free-floating defender in order to impede Madrid’s big men following screens. As such, the visitors had double-digit leads that even reached 15 points.
The second half started with an unbelievable crescendo by James, who scored 18 points in 10 minutes on 5-for-5 three-pointers that he attempted on the switches, in isolation with his defender and also in transition. At one point, Laso called on defensive ace Jeffery Taylor, but he couldn’t stop James either. This breakout led to an amazing third quarter, with Laboral scoring 31 points and Madrid experiencing problems despite its numerous offensive rebounds. In general, the home team tightened up their defense, pressing hard on Madrid’s guards, who couldn’t find any passageways. In the fourth quarter, Laboral ran away with the game, with Bourousis passing beautifully on double-teams, handing out ready-made shots to teammates cutting quickly to the basket. The game had now become wild, Sergio Llull scored two fantastic three-pointers despite very good defense, while Sergio Rodriguez moved very well without the ball, executing in motion. Overall, the home team had a very good second half in which they played really good defense on the pick-and-roll, with Bourousis being good defensively as well, especially towards the end, but also with James playing some amazing individual defenses on Rodriguez, forcing him to shoot from ten meters out twice. In the end, everything was decided by a single shot, with Bertans finding the target and giving his team a huge win.
Efes disappointed and were disqualified
In the Turkish capital’s local derby, Anadolu Efes Istanbul played their trump card in order to qualify for the playoffs, and, in one more game, they were very bad in defense and sluggish in offense, losing much more easily than what the final score betrays. It’s clear that Fenerbahce Istanbul is looking for ways to fill the void left by injury to Jan Vesely. His absence creates some special circumstances in their game, on offense as well as defense. The biggest difference is the relocation of Luigi Datome from the ‘4’ position to the ‘3’ for long periods of time. This kind of relocation deprives Zeljko Obradovic’s team of their game in the post, and also the pick-and-roll, but provides more room on offense in terms of spacing. It also creates an advantage for the Italian when he moves along the perimeter, as he has speed, quality and prowess in execution that make things hard for his opponents. This was especially true against an Efes defense that tried to switch on screens almost throughout the entire game, thereby gifting Datome with mismatches as he posted smaller opponents and scored with ease. Overall, Efes’s defense was, once again, very poor, with the third quarter being the most characteristic example. In those 10 minutes, they conceded 20 points by Datome and Bogdan Bogdanovic in plays where, most times, the defenders dealt with them in a rather casual fashion and let them shoot easily.
Pero Antic also contributed important help, with his very good screens in the second quarter obstructing defenders and creating open shots for his teammates. Antic was also moved to center, where he plays a lot differently than Ekpe Udoh, moving more along the perimeter, setting up many screens away from the ball and setting up in the corners to shoot. In this way, he forces the defense to spread out, which creates more open spaces. Out of the home team’s 71 shots, only 22 of them were made from inside the paint. Datome and Bogdanovic scored 50% of Fenerbahce’s points, 45 out of 90. On defense, of course, Fenerbahce’s protection of the rim is not at the same level since Vesely together with Udoh created a wall that was almost impenetrable.
Poorly performing Efes scored almost 40 points from inside the paint, even though most of them came in the fourth quarter, with the game having been decided. Efes was disqualified by not showing enough commitment on defense and by being almost entirely reliant upon Thomas Heurtel’s creativity on offense. Dusan Ivkovic’s experiment didn’t succeed even though the Efes roster seemed like it had a lot of potential, though ultimately it was not expressed on the court.