By Panos Katsiroubas/ info@eurohoops.net
The Magnifying Glass focuses its attention on all the courts of Turkish Airlines Euroleague and each week examines through its basketball lens some of the games that stole the show in Europe’s top competition!
Qualification win for Real Madrid
In the Game of the Week and the only real do-or-die scenario of the Top 16’s final round, Real Madrid and Khimki Moscow Region went head to head for the fourth time this season. The winners would go on to the playoffs, while the losers would watch their Euroleague season come to an end. In the end, the big victory was celebrated by Madrid, the home team, who played great defense throughout the entire second half and once again found a big game player in Jaycee Carroll. The opening of the game didn’t betray at any point that this was a knockout game, with both teams offering a great spectacle and putting on an amazing offensive show. Sergio Llull and Rudy Fernandez took advantage early of the Khimki’s poor defensive reactions on screens and found the space to execute and score. In general, Madrid circulated the ball fluidly as Khimki’s defense looked slow. Essentially, the visitors stopped just a few of Madrid’s attacks: otherwise, the defending champs had a lot of open shots. On the other side, Khimki relied on inspiration of the amazing Tyrese Rice throughout the first half.
The former Final Four MVP was, in effect, playing on his own against Madrid’s defense, punishing it in every way; shooting both from behind screens and into the teeth of the defense, but also driving when Madrid’s defense left space to do so. Madrid’s offensive plan changed whenever Carroll stepped on the court. In these intervals, Madrid essentially stopped the pick-and-roll attack and focused on Carroll getting good screens in order to get free and shoot. We saw him getting double-screens with one on the baseline and another along the wings. In other instances, we saw the so-called elevator screen, with the two big men setting themselves up on one side and, once Carroll had already gone by and was in a position to shoot, closing like elevator doors in front of the defender.
A very good job of this was done by Felipe Reyes, who was very dynamic and who, with his good screens, essentially gave his teammate the time to shoot directly or put the ball on the floor and attempt a mid-range shot. Aside from the screens, Reyes also took advantage of every mismatch, punishing either Sergei Monia in the post or shooting from the perimeter when James Augustine and Paul Davis were on court together. Both teams finished the first half with unreal stats, hinting that whichever team managed to find their defensive filter after halftime would have the advantage for getting the win. That team was Madrid, who took aim at Rice and managed to contain him in the third quarter. They did this by upping the levels of pressure on the ball, either through Llull, or Sergio Rodriguez, but also through a more aggressive response by the big men on screens.
In essence, all the Madrid players were involved in defending him whenever Rice had the ball. As such, he scored only 2 points in the second half without dishing a single assist, whereas in the first half he had 22 points and 4 assists. The pressure on Rice threw his entire team in disarray as they lost the way to the basket, scoring only 4 points in the opening 8 minutes of the third quarter. During this time, Pablo Laso’s team started getting double-digit leads, leads that they maintained until the end of the game. For this to happen, it took another offensive outbreak by Carroll, who scored 23 points in 22 minutes, but also Rodriguez’s multifaceted presence, with 10 points and as many assists.
Good vibes in Freak City
Brose Baskets Bamberg was playing its trump card in an effort to qualify against visiting Laboral Kutxa Vitoria Gasteiz, but a win of its own would not be enough as FC Barcelona Lassa had to lose in Lithuania to Zalgiris Kaunas as well. Even though the results did not help, Andrea Trinchieri’s players delivered yet another impressive performance in front of the team’s fans, playing a complete game and handing Laboral its biggest loss of the Euroleague season. The home team did everything perfectly from the first moment to the last. They entered the court determined, they had their foot on the gas from the start, circulated the ball excellently with Nikos Zisis and Bradley Wanamaker passing excellently after ball screens. Of course, the good ball circulation was a product of Bamberg‘s great spacing, which stretched a very good Laboral defense with quick passes. Together, Wanamaker and Zisis 16 of Bamberg’s 26 assists of 32 field goals made – or 81%. That is among the best assist-to-basket rates seen from any team this season and shows the quality and teamwork of Trinchieri’s squad. Bamberg scored with frequency in transition as well and punished every mismatch in Laboral’s defense.
Darius Miller, especially in the first quarter, but also Daniel Theis, scored at a high frequency and provided solutions whenever the visitors tried to get back in the game. Bamberg’s players did a good job on defense as well, as they limited Laboral leader Ioannis Bourousis’s participation in his team’s offense, especially in the post. Bamberg tried to not let him get the ball easily, but when he did, they made it hard for him to approach the basket, forcing Bourousis to shoot longer shots. Laboral’s dilemma could be seen from its 24 two-point shot attempts as comparted to 31 from three-point distance, numbers that show how much the driving lanes to the basket were blocked. For large parts of the game, Velimir Perasovic tried zone-press defenses to throw the home team off its rhythm, but they didn’t achieve much. Laboral trimmed the deficit to 11 points, but got no closer. In the end, it was easy for Bamberg to prevail in what was a very beautiful atmosphere. That’s definitely a team we are going to miss as we move on, since they managed to add their own color to the competition by getting a total of seven wins in the Top 16.
Darussafaka stole the limelight
In a game that held no interest in terms of the standings, Darussafaka Dogus Istanbul made perhaps its best appearance of the season and prevailed over visiting Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar in a game that was attractive and held its interest until the end. It was the second win in a row for Oktay Mahmuti’s team against play-off bound opponents after they had beat Crvena Zvezda Telekom Belgrade a week earlier. Lokomotiv used many players in preparation for its upcoming playoff games against FC Barcelona Lassa, but this didn’t stop the visitors from having a very good first half. They moved the ball and screened away from the ball very well, producing many open shots for the team’s skilled shooters. Lokomotiv made 13 of 27 three-pointers, the main reason they led most of the game. Forwards Victor Claver and Andrey Zubkov were often the beneficiaries of the good ball circulation, scoring before the defense could catch up. In the second half, the game changed, with Darussafaka playing excellently, piercing Lokomotiv’s defense at every opportunity and making good choices on kick-out passes to find gaps in the defense.
The turnaround started, however, with Darussafaka going to the post more often to take advantage of its size and strength. In many instances, the big were able not only to score, but also to create from the inside out. In the third quarter, we saw all of Darussafaka’s players score inside. Aside from Semih Erden, Luke Harangody and Emir Preldzic, Reggie Redding posted up his defender, too. From there, as Lokomotiv sent double-teams, Darussafaka’s post players read well both the screens and cuts of their teammates to score easy and without pressure. In the last quarter, the rifts came from the perimeter, with Scottie Wilbekin piercing Lokomotiv’s defense at every opportunity. He finished the game with 11 points and 6 assists, while his team set a record in assists in this year’s competition, with 26 passes made for 31 shots on target, something that testifies to the team’s excellent performance, especially in the second half. Lokomotiv treated this game like a test and didn’t seem to be bothered a great deal about this particular defeat.
An advertisement for basketball in Piraeus
Eleven months ago these specific rivals had faced each other in the semifinal of the Final Four in Madrid, with Olympiacos Piraeus getting the qualification over CSKA Moscow. In this week’s game, the interest was minimal since Olympiacos were already ruled out, while CSKA had secured the group’s top spot. Despite this, there was tension, suspense and an overall great show at Peace & Friendship Stadium. In the end, the visitors prevailed mostly thanks to the great accuracy from the perimeter in the first and fourth quarters. In these two 10-minute periods, Dimitrios Itoudis’s team scored 68 points and played magnificently on offense. With a screen on the ball, thanks to the talent of Nando De Colo and Milos Teodosic, but also excellent spacing, CSKA opened up wide their offense. Good kick-outs and extra passes found good shots, despite the fact that Olympiacos was quickly recovering on defense. Olympiacos decided to risk letting certain CSKA players shoot, but Andrey Vorontsevich, Nikita Kurbanov and Aaron Jackson punished this tactic by scoring several mid- and long-range shots. On offense, CSKA targeted Vassilis Spanoulis, and as a result spent many plays in an isolation game with the whoever the Olympiacos captain was guarding. Jackson, especially, did a great job scoring but also wearing down his great opponent. Olympiacos, meanwhile, played very good defense in the second and third quarters, holding CSKA to 31 points in those 20 minutes. In addition to putting a lot of pressure on CSKA’s guards, Olympiacos also had hands and bodies darting out at every pass, whether it was bound for the paint or the perimeter for a shot.
In this period, the home team made a lot of steals and scored with considerable frequency in transition. Overall, there were points in the game when Olympiacos brought all of CSKA’s defensive weaknesses to the fore. We also saw how crucial Matt Lojeski’s absence throughout the Top 16 has been for Olympiacos. His performance after many months injured showed how he could have contributed in aspects of the game that the team was missing and that cost them the qualification, especially in terms of perimeter shooting from the weak side. The Belgian guard finished the game with 18 points and just 2 misses. CSKA didn’t hold back and played at full pace despite the fact that they have a playoff series ahead of them, which shows how much they valued this particular game and opponent. The home team is not going to be in the playoffs of Turkish Airlines Euroleague for the first time in 11 years.