By Michalis Gioulenglou/ info@eurohoops.net
Riga, Latvia – Khadeen Carrington was asked how Israel can stop Giannis Antetokounmpo, and his answer was the obvious: “You tell me”.
The Israelis made it to the Eurobasket Round of 16 for the first time in a decade, and now things are getting complicated.
As the naturalized guard admitted: “Obviously Giannis is a great player. Players like that, it’s not really stopping them. It’s more about containing them and containing everyone else around, so we’ll see how it goes”.
Israel has already done its homework for the game: “I did get to watch some of Greece’s play. We actually played them too, in a prep game. Giannis and a few other guys weren’t playing, but we kind of know their DNA. We know what they wanna do, we know their main main players, so that’s just what we gotta focus on”.
That’s why the game is going to be all about defense: “I think it’s gonna be a lot of scrambling. Just take them out of what they wanna do. I think if you let teams just do what they wanna do and not take something away, it’ll make it easy for them. So just make it uncomfortable a little bit, obviously, like you said, they got great guards over there, they got great players over there. We’re just making something a little hard”.
Photo credit: FIBA