By Panos Katsiroumpas/ info@eurohoops.net
We are just one turn away before the end of the dramatic Top 16 and still there is a lot of Drama ahead of us in the last week. The Magnifying Glass after focusing in the Classico of Barcelona and the big game in Moscow, mentions the most important facts of the other games of the 13th week.
Renfroe and Redding shined! This was the 3rd game in a row that Redding and Renfroe led the German team to a big victory. Renfroe entered the floor when his team was back by 9 points and proved to be their brain in the court. He scored 16 points and dished 9 assists, while his teammate Reggie Redding scored all the big shots that led Alba to a late winning comeback in Athens against Panathinaikos.
The Greens played with the fire… Panathinaikos played against with the fire, like last week in Istanbul, but this time paid the prize. The Greens didn’t play their usual offensive game with variable movement without the ball and many screens, they were trapped in set 5 vs 5 game and didn’t have the solutions. Diamantidis kept them alive with big shots but were not enough in the end. They scored only 26 points in the 2nd half.
Their usual weapon! The biggest weapon of Alba in Athens was their usual power defense in their backcourt. They have the bodies to match almost any opponent and at the same time they are not vulnerable in miss matches. The perimeter defense is the biggest weapon of Alba this year.
Where is the defense? On the contrary Fenerbahce played terrible defense in the perimeter, and never took stops from their forwards against the talented backcourt of Laboral Kutxa. The players of the Spanish team penetrated in the basket and scored whenever they wanted to against a defense that wasn’t there. James, Adams, Causeur, and San Emeterio scored together 64 of the 93 points of Baskonia.
Key point! The key point of the game in Vitoria was the reaction of Baskonia in the beginning of the 2nd half. Fenerbahce started the 2nd half with an 8-0 run to cut the deficit to 5 points, but the players of Baskonia answered with a 12-0 run that transformed the 42-37 to 54-37 and never looked back.
Big absence… It took months for the players of Fenerbahce to found their roles in the team and play good basketball especially in the 2nd round of the Top 16, and at that moment their bad luck hit their door. The absence of Hickman is huge for this team and this may be a huge obstacle that the Turkish Team is difficult to overcome in order to achieve their goals in the competition.
The big three! Smith, Randle and Tyus were perfect in the crucial game of Maccabi against Galatasaray. The 3 of them did everything in both ends of the floor and were the reason that led Maccabi. They finished the game combining for 58 points, 22 rebounds, 6 assist and tons of energy!
One week away! We are just one week away of the end of the TOP 16 and still many fronts are open. We have the big Turkish and Spanish derbies for one spot in the top 16 and the battle of Panathinaikos, Maccabi and Alba for the remaining 2 spots behind Real and Barcelona.
That’s why Duda picked Heurtel! What a comeback from Efes, what an offensive explosion from Thomas Heurtel! The French guard scored 16 points in the 3rd quarter with big time shots, helping his team to make a big comeback. Krstic and Saric contributed also, but Heurtel showed that he is becoming the leader of this team.
Armani Milano woke up late… The Italians made a good effort in their last chance game in Istanbul and controlled the game for 25 minutes. In the end they felt short against a team with more solutions. If they played all the TOP 16, the way they played the last games they could have achieved something more.
The highlight of the week! The highlight of the week was definitely the reactions of coach Ataman in the first timeouts of Galatasaray in the game against Maccabi. He was just sitting without giving instructions to his players, something that he has done again in the past. (video)