By Panos Katsiroubas/ info@eurohoops.net
A great game took place in Istanbul between Anadolu Efes Istanbul and Olympiacos Piraeus, two teams that have aspirations to go all the way in this year’s Turkish Airlines Euroleague.
Great defensive effort
In the opening 15 minutes Olympiacos’s defense completely dominated, with the offense clearly finding its rhythm through the reactions in defense. The red-and-whites managed to control the rhythm, raised their defense, the first line of which was the traps and offensive hedge outs, and the second line, which was the rest of the players. They ran high on the court in order to try to intercept the 2nd pass and block the circulation of the ball when it left the guard who was under pressure. The covers and rotations were very good, Efes didn’t have any width to their offense and Olympiacos imposed themselves on the defensive end.
By the 15th minute Dusan Ivkovic’s team had scored only 15 points with bad percentages and bad circulation of the ball, with several choices that lacked common sense. Olympiacos had quite good choices in their set game, controlled but successful transitions involving many different players, but also good reading of the mismatches inside the paint with Othello Hunter and Ioannis Papapetrou the beneficiaries.
In the last 5 minutes of the first half, Efes turned the game around and from a 15-point deficit (15-30) closed out the half trailing by 6 (30-36). They scored 15 points mostly because they opened up their offense and filled the wings with Birkan Batuk and Jon Diebler, forcing Olympiacos’s defense to cover greater distances and making the rotations tougher. An important role in this was played but the youngster Ahmet Duverioglu who was able to provide some defensive stops but also unblock the team’s offense.
A different story – Granger on fire
In the 3rd period Patric Young’s absence became more noticeable than at any other time up to that point, after he sustained a knee injury in the 1st period. With the necessary rotation, Dimitrios Agravanis played as a center for a few minutes and as a result Olympiacos’s defense became vulnerable in the screens on the ball but in the switching defense as well. Jayson Granger and Thomas Heurtel scored at a fast pace, either with shots following a screen or drives to the red-and-whites’ basket, which looked like a free passage after switches in their defense. The Turkish team scored 24 points and had found a rhythm in offense. Olympiacos had lost both their pressure and the toughness they produced and it’s telling that between the 15th and 30th minute they conceded 36 points.
Efes came in with their foot on the gas and the pair of Heurtel and Granger taking the situation in their hands. The French guard read the game amazingly well, passing ideally on the traps and creating a 4v3 game for his teammates. With the extra passes and the very good offensive spacing, but also the switching of positions, Granger and Dario Saric scored some important shots from the perimeter.
The super efficient defense of the first 15 minutes had been drained under Efes’s energy and reading of the game. Characteristically, Olympiacos had conceded 15 points midway through the second quarter, while from the 15th minute to the 35th they had conceded 57. A big role in this differentiation was played by Jayson Granger’s verve. Efes even had an11-point lead (72-61) and the game seemed to be over.
Olympiacos’ way
But in the last 5 minutes, Giannis Sfairopoulos’s players made the desperate attempt to come back with Georgios Printezis – who was the main point of reference in offense (17 points) – but also Daniel Hackett – who stood out from the guards with 11 points and 8 assists, but also some very good individual defensive plays – as their main conduits. The home team made some bad choices in offense and missed many crucial shots, culminating in the missed pair by Heurtel.
In the extra five minutes, aside from a three-point rhapsody (Matt Lojeski-Heurtel), we saw many moves made form the benches. The most important one was Giannis Sfairopoulos’s decision to play with 4 guards and Ioannis Papapetrou as a center by convention. With this line-up, Olympiacos scored 5 points with a three-pointer by Ioannis Athinaiou and a basket by Papapetrou in the post on a mismatch. D. J. Stawberry and Hackett shut off the lanes to the basket in the next few crucial defenses and gave Olympiacos the win.