IN THE GAME

CSKA: Evgeny Pashutin’s team is 1:2 now, and they could easily stand at 0:3 had it not been for Victor Khryapa’s difficult buzzer beater in Athens. I don’t believe this is about neither the hole on the 4/5, nor about the stars’ alleged decline. Trajan Langdon is more agile than ever, Ramunas Siskauskas should not have declined significantly in just six months [in early May 2009, he gave us a worthwhile performance in the Berlin Euroleague Final Four], and JR Holden’s current problems are not his decline in fitness. It’s the fact that he’s basically uncoached, taking crazy shots like in his pre-Messina-days.

A few years back I watched a young CSKA roster shortened by injuries to three superstars – Theodoros Papaloukas, Ramunas Siskauskas and Matjaz Smodis – travel to Vitoria-Gasteiz for a Euroleague first round game versus TAU. TAU was a force back then, unbeaten at home in the Euroleague for more than two years. CSKA played just with four foreigners, as they do today. It was a masterpiece of coaching and execution from minute one onwards. Messina played Anatoly Kashirov, Andrei Vorontsevich, Nikita Kurbanov, Artem Zabelin [all two years less experienced than today] and old Zakhar Pashutin for significant minutes, CSKA ran away with an early lead, every one of the youngsters contributed, and TAU could never got it close. I fail to see this determination and most importantly this discipline on the current CSKA team. At the same time, we see it on the current Real Madrid team.

CSKA’s loss is Real’s gain: In the clash of two titans, Real came away with a 80:70 victory over Panathinaikos yesterday. Messina’s players double-teamed Nikola Pekovic consistently, forcing him into 7 turnovers [he was still able to add 22 and 7 rebounds], and slowed the tempo down on the offensive end to a Messina-style pace of 65 possessions per team. Very good ball movement and perimeter shooting [10/23 three pointers; 16 assists on 10 turnovers] as well as solid production by lowpost players Darius Lavrinovic and Novica Velickovic kept them up on top after coming back from a poor first quarter.

More than expected: Rytas has been playing extremely well, but a budget of 2 million Euro will only get you so far. Olympiacos pressured hart in the halfcourt, in particular against point guard Bojan Popovic and shooting guard Martynas Gecevicius, two of the revelation players so far this Euroleague season. Anyway, I enjoy watching this team play, lets hope they continue playing well and make it to Top16.

Youth watch:

• While Navarro-less Barca clearly struggled in Kaunas in the absence of their superstar, it was a nice opportunity for Xavi Rabaseda, a future Spanish national team hopeful, to see some minutes. Rabaseda, a 1989 born shooting guard, played 2:38 minutes and missed his only three point attempt. He usually plays for Barca’s farm team CB Cornella, who he is averaging 14.2 points for in LEB Silver. Ricky Rubio had 8 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists, just as you’d expect, but his shooting – 0/4 from downtown on Thursday – remains a huge problem.

• 1989 born 2.12m ASVEL center Bangaly Fofana had 2 points in 6:47 minutes  in ASVEL’s home loss to Montepaschi.

• Oguz Savas had a double double of 14 and 10 rebounds versus Cibona, while his center colleague Omer Asik added 8 and 5. Emir Preldzic was 0 for 5 from the field but had 5 assist.

• Cibona: Bojan Bogdanovic [1989] 2 points, 1/5 FG in 8:20 minutes, Leon Radosevic [1990] 10 points on 5/8 shooting and 6 rebounds in 35:50[!], Tomislav Zubcic [1990] 0/1 in 5:10 minutes. Zubcic is the guy with the bigger upside, but let us keep an eye on Radosevic this season.

• Mantas Kalnietis [1986] had 13 points, 6 assists, 3 steals and 4 turnovers for Zalgiris, while his backup Zygimantas Janavicius was 0/1 from the field and had one turnover in 2:51.

• Martynas Gecevicius [1988] was well-defended by Olympiacos on Wednesday, going 3 for 9 from the field, but that still was enough for 7 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists.

• Partizan: Jan Vesely [1990] had 6 points and 3 rebounds on 2/2 from the field in 15:55 versus Orléans, but his shooting remains a weak spot; Stefan Sinovec [1988] had 5 points on 2/3 shooting in 4:01; Aleksandar Mitrovic [1990] played 6:24 and finished with a rebound, an assist and a turnover; Branislav Djekic [1991] meanwhile had 6 points, a rebound an an assist on 2/4 shooting [including two made three pointers] in 11:50 floor time.

• Orléans: 4 points, 5 assists and 2 steals in 24:43 for point guard Aldo Curti [1987], an outstanding game of 14 points [5/6 FG, 4/4 FT] and 7 boards for 1988-born center Ludovic Vaty, and a bad day [1/7 FG, 8:25 minutes] for Adrien Moerman [1988].

• Britain’s Joel Freeland [1987] keeps playing extremely well in Euroleague, this time posting 15 and 9 in Unicaja’s overtime victory over Efes.

• Andrei Vorontsevich [1987] had 4 points and 5 rebounds in 22:08 for CSKA in Tel Aviv. Anton Ponkrashov [1986] had 8 points on 2/5 shooting.

• Timofey Mozgov [1986] 6 points [3/5 FG] and 4 rebounds.

• Sergio Llull played extremely well, posting 12 points [5/8 FG], 4 rebounds and 4 assists.

• Giorgi Shermadini [1989] had 6 points, 2 rebounds and a block in 9:50 minutes for Panathinaikos versus Real.

Notes:

• Jan Vesely: Three games, fouled out three times

• Romain Sato: 33 points on 12/18, 6 rebounds. Terrell McIntyre is not a hundred percent fit which is why he isn’t attacking the basket as we expect him to, but is concentrating on passing instead: 9.3 assists per game so far in 25:33 minutes per game. Maybe he should keep it that way.

• Antonio Graves, after a couple of disgraceful performances, had 14 points on 6/12 shooting for Cibona in Istanbul.