By Panos Katsiroubas/ info@eurohoops.net
The magnifying Glass focuses its attention on all the European courts of Turkish Airlines Euroleague and each week it will choose to examine through its basketball lens some of the games that stole the show in the top competition!
A defining victory
In a very important game for the qualification, Brose Baskets Bamberg achieved a great win over Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv with a 77-66 score. If we can make an overall conclusion, that would be that the best and most well-prepared outfit won. Once again, Andrea Trinchieri’s team appeared well schooled in what to do, with constant movement, a lot of screens on and away from the ball, and good spacing on offense. The German team scored 42 points in the first half, struck at every weakness of Maccabi‘s switching defense, ran well in the open court and read the game very well on every attack. Maccabi was limited to a more individual game, with screens primarily on the ball, and took advantage of the talent of some players, with Devin Smith scoring on shots from the perimeter. The American finished the game with 19 points after making 5 of 8 three-point field goals.
The only part of the game that Maccabi dominated was the third quarter, when, on the basis of defense, the visitors interrupted Bamberg‘s rhythm, scoring with pace on the other end of the court. The separate score-line of the third quarter was 9-22 for Guy Goodes’s team. The fourth quarter, though, was a different story. Andrea Trinchieri put forward a more flexible line-up, with Daniel Theis and Nicolo Melli covering the big men’s positions, and the Italian playing the role of point forward, responsible for threatening from the perimeter but also passing. This plan worked perfectly, with the amazing Melli dishing 6 assists in the last 10 minutes and finishing the game with 10, which of course is a personal best for him in the Euroleague. Daniel Theis got his own record number of points, scoring almost all of his 16 in the fourth quarter. The German team had a 16-2 run and Maccabi were completely out of rhythm offensively, with many individual attempts, forced shots and few fluid plays. In the end, the final outcome was fair, based on the image of the two teams.
A magician as opening act
In the game that opened the new Volkswagen Arena in Istanbul, the magical Milos Teodosic’s talent shined once again. He was the main reason that his team prevailed over Darussafaka Dogus Istanbul. CSKA Moscow played as much as they needed to get the win and dominated in the first 30 minutes. CSKA‘s performance didn’t really fascinate, with Dimitris Itoudis’s team making 9 turnovers in the first 10 minutes and 12 before halftime. Nevertheless, with Teodosic having a great day yet again, the visitors maintained their lead, getting the ball in the paint with amazing passes to Kyle Hines and Viacheslav Kravtsov. In the third quarter, which was its best, the Russian team played some amazing defense, Teodosic and Nando De Colo scored consistently from the perimeter and the margin reached 20 points. The pair of Teodosic and De Colo scored 41 out of CSKA’s 80 points while making 15 out of 24 shots.
Teodosic finished the game with 9 assists. One aspect that may be of concern for CSKA’s coaching staff is the number of turnovers, 17 in total, which were as many as the team’s assists. It was CSKA’s worst performance this year in terms of the assist-to-turnover ratio. Darussafaka presented a better picture compared to previous games, but they clearly need the help of a creative guard, something that was quite noticeable in contrast to Teodosic repeatedly setting up his teammates for easy baskets. New signing Scottie Wilbekin will possibly be able to offer some important assistance in this area for Darussafaka.
A miracle-win for Real Madrid
Can a team win a game when they concede 61 points in 20 minutes? Real Madrid proved that these kinds of “miracles” are possible, staging an epic comeback in the final 3 minutes to make up for an eight-point deficit, 88-96. They clinched the win with a three-pointer by Jaycee Carroll 3 seconds before the end. We have to salute and give all our respect to Svetislav Pesic’s amazing FC Bayern Munich team. They played an amazing 20 minutes, winning the second and third quarters in Madrid by a 40-61 score, completely demolishing Pablo Laso’s team in this interval.
Madrid’s very bad defense contributed to this as well. With their pick-and-roll game as their main course of action, the visitors scored on almost every possession. They found open and accurate shots with screens along the perimeter, and they scored a lot in transition, too. Madrid was excellent in the first quater, with amazing offense as their main course of action. The hosts’ constant movement and right choices in passing led to 28 assists in total. In the final quarter, the game turned into a thriller, with Pablo Laso ordering relentless pressure on the ball, trapping and pressing all over the court. This tactic paid off with Madrid forcing Bayern to make 3 turnovers in the last 4 minutes, when in the previous 36 minutes the visitors had only 4! Bayern lost its concentration and made some hasty, erroneous choices on offense, while on defense they couldn’t contain their opponents’ explosiveness or secure crucial defensive rebounds.
In the last attack, Pablo Laso’s team opened up the court magnificently, and following a drive and a pass to the perimeter, the extra pass led to an open shot, with Bayern’s defense out of balance. The game was the apotheosis of aggressive basketball. It’s worth noting that on March 7, 2013, Madrid conceded 104 points in a 104-105 road win over Zalgiris Kaunas. In order to find a similar Madrid performance at home, we have to go back to March 13, 2008 and their 100-103 loss to Maccabi Tel Aviv. Those two games went into overtime, so in 40 minutes this is Madrid’s worst defensive performance in a 40-minute game over at least the last decade. That would be true in group stages only, though, because Madrid also conceded 100 points to Olympiacos Piraeus in the 2013 championship game in London.
Laboral Kutxa Vitoria Gasteiz’s character
Two weeks after an overtime victory against Olympiacos Piraeus, Vitoria’s basketball public was fortunate this week to another thriller won by their team. This time, it was Laboral Kutxa Vitoria Gasteiz defeating Anadolu Efes Istanbul 92-90, in overtime once again. It was a game full of paradoxes that made the win of Velimir Perasovic‘s team even more significant. For instance, on its home court, Laboral scored only 28 points in the first half, thanks to 1-for-15 three-point shooting. Even though the hosts scored 92 points by the end, they still made just 6 of 25 shots from the arc, a 24% figure. Nevertheless, mostly due to its defense, the Spanish team managed to keep an eye on an Efes team that went ahead by as many as 11 points (40-51). The home team’s individual defense was excellent, but they had a problem that nearly cost them. Defending the pick-and-roll, Laboral couldn’t stop the action of the guards of Dusan Ivkovic’s team.
Thomas Heurtel and Jayson Granger scored in every way, either through drives after a screen or with mid- but also long-range shots on defensive switches following the pick-and-roll. The two of them combined for 42 points and 9 assists. Another paradox is that the home team managed to get the win with Ioannis Bourousis essentially out of the game for the first 30 minutes. The Greek center scored his first basket in the game’s 29th minute. Nevertheless, he finished the game with 18 points, 11 rebounds and 2 blocks, playing amazingly well in the last 15 minutes. In overtime, Dusan Ivkovic made the decision to play with Dario Saric and Derrick Brown as his big men. This probably had some negative consequences as Laboral scored all 4 of its baskets in the extra 5 minutes from inside the paint. Adam Hanga and Jaka Blazic provided significant assistance to Laboral with their defense, with the Hungarian having 4 impressive blocks that turned out to be crucial as the game wore on.
A tale of two halves
We saw a game with two different sides to it in Krasnodar, with host Lokomotiv Kuban managing to maintain its undefeated streak after a very bad start in the first 20 minutes against Pinar Karsiyaka Izmir. Georgios Bartzokas’s team encountered great difficulties with the zone that his counterpart, Ufuk Sarica, set up. The biggest problem was that the ball stalled and wasn’t circulating, and the players of the Russian team didn’t have patience nor did they make the right choices on the offensive end. Karsiyaka kept striking with their pick-and-roll game, with Joe Ragland having a very mature first half as he produced 11 points in just 5 shots and some good passes inside the paint that were primarily received by Colton Iverson, but also Kerem Gonlum.
As time passed, it made sense that Lokomotiv would start to move the ball better facing the zone, something that happened in the second half with the Russian team spreading out its offense, screening more both on the ball and away from it, and using several drives and good passes out to the perimeter to stretch the defense and score with greater ease.
What was unexpected in the second half was the total disappearance of the Turkish team, who literally lost sight of the basket. Of course, Lokomotiv’s improvement on defense played a role in this, with Dontaye Draper and Malcolm Delaney the main conduits. They shut off the lanes to the basket, they almost obliterated Karsiyaka’s pick-and-roll and they forced Sarica’s team to take bad shots and make many turnovers. Tellingly, in the second half, Karsiyaka made only 8 of 29 shots and had 11 turnovers. In the first half, the corresponding numbers were 11 of 28 shots and only 6 turnovers, with a much better control of the game rhythm. The worst thing for Karsiyaka was that the three players who had scored 40% of the team’s points in the first three games lagged hopelessly behind. Kenny Gabriel, Josh Carter and Juan Palacios had an average of 31 points out of the 70 before Krasnodar, but just 5 total on 2-for-18 shooting against Lokomotiv. Those numbers essentially barred any thoughts of a win for the Turkish team.