By Panos Katsiroympas/ info@eurohoops.net
After the analysis of the 2 very important derbies in Athens and Vitoria, let’s take a look in the rest 6 games and their most important facts as we are turning in the most critical period in the Top 16.
In Eurohoops we put a quiz about undersized or big guys in center position. Boban Marjanovic answered in his own way with his performance against Barcelona. Total dominator in both end he finished the game in double figures in points and rebounds. He was also great in creating with 5 assists. The defense of Barca played with single coverage in almost all game and he punished them.
The key player of Barcelona in the Belgrade game was Tomas Satoransky. He played good defense against Marcus Williams, he gave 2nd opportunities with his offensive boards and he created plays both from the post and the perimeter. 11 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists his numbers!
Red Star played huge defense in the 3rd quarter and started the 4th with the same pace. The passion and enthusiasm of the players cost to the Serbian Team cheap fouls that lead Barca to the free throw line to score easy points. This fact gave the Catalans 8 points in period that Red Star dominated them.
Maccabi is not in a good mood and they don’t play well the last month. They were lucky that they faced Zalgiris and not a better team against them. They were also lucky to have Pargo in good scoring day (even though he was not looking for open passes). 26 points with 14 shots is a great number.
The backcourt DUO of CSKA did the most work for the Russian team in Andalusia against Malaga. In the 1st half was mostly Nando De Colo and in the 2nd it was all Milos Teodosic. The two of the combined for 44 and 14 assists! The perimeter of CSKA back in action for good!
The absences of Malaga were more than important. They played without 3 important players in their backcourt rotation (Toolson, Granger and Vasileiadis) and missed huge amount of scoring and creating. For 20 minutes they put pressure on CSKA but in the end they couldn’t follow.
Alba Berlin is back in the qualification race, with the comeback of their injured players improving their offensive variety and options. With Renfroe and Tabu on the floor, Redding found spaces to create and played excellent. He finished with 10 points and 10 assists, with Renfroe adding 6 more dishes for the German team.
Galatasaray came back in the 4th quarter and the surprise of that was that they put pressure on Alba without the 2 American players. Carter had a very poor night and Young helped in some aspects. Even though with the 2 on the bench the Turkish side came back from a 19-point deficit and cut the lead to 3 2 minutes before the end.
Milko Bjelica was the difference for Efes. For another game, coach Ivkovic used him in the center position in order to stretch the defense of Nizhni and create spaces for all the others inside. Osman was also great in transition and Heurtel was close in a triple double for the Turkish side.
With Mekel in squad Nizhny faces another problem. The creation of Rochestie is declining every game. The paradox in the game against Efes was that even though his execution was great he finished the game with 0 assists. Nizhny finished the game with only 10 assists and for some parts of the game faced huge offensive problems.
What can you say about Nemanja Bjelica? Another great game against Milano. He was great especially in terms of creation from the perimeter with 6 assists. Most of them were passes for open shots for his teammate in the Serbian team also Bogdan Bogdanovic who finished the game with 25 points.
The defense of the 2nd period is something that Obradovic will be mad of. Milano playing a totally isolation offensive game, scored 31 points, something that shows that the individual defense of Fenerbahce was absent by all means.
Highlight of the week: Everybody knows the quality of Juan Carlos Navarro, but in the game against Red Star he scored a very difficult corner shot with the help of the glass. Something we don’t see every day!