By Chris Litsas / info@eurohoops.net
The best part of this year’s EuroLeague is about to start. After a fully competitive regular season the top 8 teams are getting prepared to fight for a spot in this year’s final four.
Preparation for these games involves loads of strategy development. The coaches analyze the strengths and weaknesses of their opponents and they have to come up with a plan to beat them.
A big part of the analysis is to figure out how certain player combinations affect the game as they play together. A good example from the recent history of EuroLeague is the Diamantidis-Batiste duo; these two players could play so well together and help their team outscore most of their opponents with ease.
By having a good sample of 34 games played already, we found the best duos of each playoff team and in the rest of this article we see their contribution to their teams success. With the help of 3StepsBasket we ranked all the duos of the 8 teams based on the total points difference their team had while each duo was active. As “best” we call the duo with the highest difference over the course of the season.
FC Barcelona vs. Zenit St Petersburg
Best duos
As we see from the table above, Barcelona almost reaches perfection when Jasikevicious uses both Nick Calathes and Nikola Mirotic. They dominate all statistical categories and on average they get a win margin of 8 points per game from the around 20 mins that these two stars share the floor. Usually this duo is enhanced by Abrines and/or Higgins who fit perfectly next to them.
The chart above reveals another aspect of the efficiency of this combination. Mirotic and Calathes have coexisted in 26 games and they have only been “defeated” in 5 of them (blue bars show the points difference for Barcelona while they played together).
Zenit St Petersburg on the other hand can outplay their opponents when Pangos and Ponitka join forces. Their main driver is the very high percentage on the two-pointers and the only flaw of their game is the slightly more turnovers they commit than their opponents. A side note is that in the two regular season games against Barcelona, this duo had a negative plus/minus score (56-60).
Interesting fact
An exciting matchup to watch is Calathes vs. Pangos. Nick focuses on highly efficient team facilitation resulting in better offense and better defense per possession for Barcelona. With him active the Catalans score 118.2 points on offense and allow only 103.9 points on defense per 100 possessions.
Pangos on the other hand can score more, with high efficiency, as he averages 27 points per 100 possessions. Given the opportunity coach Pasqual will definitely try to take advantage of his scoring skills and under circumstances he will let him free to create/execute.
AX Armani Exchange Milano vs. FC Bayern Munich
Best duos
Milano fans must really enjoy watching their team when Gigi Datome with Shavon Shields are simultaneously on the floor. They form one of these duos that top their opponents in all statistical categories. In contrast to other teams though Messina’s strategy is not to overuse that duo. In 26 games they have only shared the floor for a bit more than 10 minutes per game.
For Bayern Munich the pattern is pretty similar as their better duo is formed by two relatively big men. Paul Zipser playing along with Jalen Reynolds is the winning recipe for the Bavarians. The very high assist to turnover ratio reveals that they enable their team to run “clean” offense with easy looks.
Interesting fact: Shields and Datome shooting patterns
Anadolu Efes Istanbul vs. Real Madrid
Best duos
Efes had a rusty start to the season, but coach Ataman managed to optimize their game before it’s too late. Interestingly he used many units with 3 guards, which is not that usual in EuroLeague anymore. Out of all these combinations the one with Simon and Micic stands out as the best of the season. They had been used on average for around 25 mins in 27 games and they managed to outscore their opponents almost by 6 points in each game.
Real on the other hand had many problems to face, but they were happy to have a constant team-booster throughout the course of the season. Edy Tavares had a positive plus-minus in 29 out of his 34 games which is the highest number among all EuroLeague players. Main part of this success was due to his perfect connection with Jaycee Carroll. Real Madrid shoots the two-pointers with the immensely high percentage of 63.7% while these two players coexist on the floor. They also dominate the boards but they are a bit sloppy with the ball as they turn it over more frequently than their opponents.
Interesting fact
In the two regular season games these two teams faced each-other the main force for Efes was Chris Singleton. In total Efes outscored Real by 27 points (89-62) with Singleton active. In both games he was facilitated by Micic and Larkin who pushed the team together with him.
For Real the most positive player in those games was Rudy Fernandez with a total plus-minus of +13 followed by Tavares and Carroll.
CSKA Moskow vs. Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul
Best duos
Before the end of this regular season CSKA had a big issue to solve, they parted ways with Mike James. Covering his absence was not an easy task for coach Itoudis since Mike James had been contributing to a +5.5 points margin per game while he was on the floor.
But CSKA has plenty of talent and together with that some very strong combinations that can harm every opponent. Their best duo as for the end of the season was the big men Shengelia and Kurbanov. These two players help CSKA to dominate the boards giving more possessions which lead to a +4 point margin per game on average.
For Fenerbahce this season had two parts, the season before Guduric and the season after he arrived. The addition of the Serbian star unlocked the team’s full potential and drove them with confidence to the playoffs. In 25 games together with Nando De Colo they helped Fenerbahce to get an average difference of 6 points from their opponents while they were both active. Highly efficient shooting was one of the main boosters for Fener.
Interesting fact: Fenerbahce’s performance with & without Guduric
Fenerbahce managed to make it to the playoffs with ease after the addition of Guduric. The table above shows the big dependency of the Turks on him. It’s not only that they managed to get the most wins when he started playing, but as we see throughout the season Fenerbahce had been worse than their opponents in points, assists, steals, turnovers and rebounds (we show the rebounding share as percentage on the table) when Guduric wasn’t playing at all or sitting on the bench.
But everything is flipped around when Guduric is actively participating in the game. A highlight of that is the 123.5 points per 100 possessions that Fener scores which is one of the highest scoring rates in EuroLeague.
It will be really interesting to see how Dimitris Itoudis will try to push him out of the game.
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Photo: Víctor Salgado – FC Barcelona